Obituary of Raymond M. Turner PhD

TURNER, Raymond M., PhD 2/25/1927 - 12/9/2018 Raymond Marriner Turner, an internationally recognized plant ecologist, died in Tucson after a short illness at age 91. He was born in Salt Lake City in 1927 to Margaret Barber and Marriner Turner. Ray's love and respect for nature was first kindled in Utah, where he spent most of his childhood with his sisters, Sally and Cynthia. He attended Utah State University receiving a degree in botany. In 1949, while taking a summer break from graduate school to work for the U.S. Forest Service near Richfield, Utah, he met Jeanne Brunner, the love of his life. The young couple married on December 27, 1949, and returned to Pullman, Washington, where Jeanne continued her career as a nurse, and Ray completed a PhD in botany and soils from Washington State College. With two young children, and one on the way, Ray and Jeanne moved to Tucson in 1954 where Ray joined the faculty at the University of Arizona. He later began work in 1962 for the U.S. Geological Survey as a research botanist, with an office and darkroom at the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill. Dr. Turner was adjunct and emeritus professor at the University of Arizona until his retirement in 1989. He left a legacy as a mentor to dozens of young scientists whose professional careers he greatly influenced. Upon arriving in the Southwest, he focused on the plant ecology of the region. His life work on saguaro cacti included a nearly half-century long study at Saguaro National Park and plots elsewhere throughout the Sonoran Desert. This work helped unlock many of the mysteries of the saguaro, Arizona's signature plant, including its establishment, growth, and survival. He was the author, co-author, or editor of dozens of books and hundreds of publications, with many completed after retirement. His groundbreaking use of repeat photography to document vegetation change and its causes was published in "The Changing Mile" (1965) in which he was testing and proving many important scientific premises and hypotheses. Other important publications were "Sonoran Desert Plants: An Ecological Atlas" (1995); "The Changing Mile Revisited" (2003); "The Ribbon of Green" (2007); "Requiem for the Santa Cruz" (2014); and "Kenya's Changing Landscape" (1998), co-authored with his wife, Jeanne. Although he never learned to swim, Ray rafted the Colorado River through the Marble and Grand Canyons more than two dozen times to match 100-year-old photographs to help document how construction of Glen Canyon Dam changed the density and occurrence of riparian vegetation along the channel banks, including invasive species. On one such trip during the legendary super flood in 1984, he was thrown from his overturned raft in Lava Falls and was thankfully rescued. Ray served on the Board of Trustees for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and on the Boards of Directors of the Arizona Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Southern Arizona Chapter of the Arizona Historical Society, the Malpai Borderlands Group, and the Animas Foundation. He was also a member of the Tucson Audubon Society, the Saguaro-Juniper Corporation, and served on the Citizens Sign Code Committee for the City of Tucson. In retirement, Ray worked with the Malpai Borderlands Group, a consortium of ranchers, conservationists, government agents and scientists based in southeastern Arizona. The encroachment of brush into the area grasslands, as documented in "The Changing Mile," was one of the overarching concerns of the group. During that period, he also worked with the Animas Foundation, which took over the stewardship of one of the Nature Conservancy's Last Great Places, now the Diamond A Ranch in the bootheel of New Mexico. He helped to establish the science programs for both organizations, enabling the two to implement ecosystem management on now nearly one-million acres of contiguous virtually unfragmented open space lands in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. He and wife, Jeanne were active in the Old Fort Lowell Neighborhood Association and were among those responsible for acquiring and maintaining the historic San Pedro Chapel for neighborhood events, weddings, and La Reunion de El Fuerte. In 2016, the Saguaro National Park awarded Ray its first Lifetime Science Service Award, now named in his honor, in recognition of his long-term monitoring and measurement of saguaro populations and his contribution to the science of desert ecology. Dr. Turner was among the first to document the re-establishment of saguaros in the Park's Cactus Forest. Ray and Jeanne were avid travelers, driving the backroads of northern Mexico, backpacking and hiking the Grand Canyon into their 70's, doing research in Kenya, and visiting colleagues and friends in Paris. They started a 30-year tradition of backpacking with extended family and friends, most frequently into the Rincon Mountains and Gila Wilderness. What stood out were the teaching moments where he shared his boundless curiosity by gathering us around, and telling us about what we were seeing -- the hows, the whys, and wherefores of his understanding and knowing. Ray is preceded in death by his loving wife, Jeanne and is survived by sisters, Sally Blumberg and Cynthia "Cindy" Miller; children, Teresa "Terry" Turner Hadley, Justin Turner (Linda), Martin Turner (Paula) and grandchildren, Seth Turner (Brittany), Leah Drake (Alex), Caitlin Jack (Gordon) and Joseph Turner. He will be deeply missed and remembered not only as a scientific giant who contributed significantly to our understanding of the changing landscapes of the arid lands of the greater Southwest and northern Mexico, but also as a kind, respectful, generous man. A Memorial is planned for a later date when the Blue Palo Verdes begin to bloom. In lieu of flowers, consider sending donations to the Desert Lab on Tumamoc Hill through The University of Arizona Foundation: www.uafoundation.org/NetCommunity/donations/ Tumamoc.