Updated at 10:29 p.m.
Donald H. Turner, Jr. — a lifelong public servant in his hometown of Milton, a former minority leader of the Vermont House and the 2018 Republican lieutenant gubernatorial nominee — died Saturday after a short illness. He was 60 years old.
According to an obituary, Turner died at the McClure Miller Respite House in Colchester, surrounded by family, following a diagnosis of glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer.
Turner had served for the previous seven years as Milton’s town manager, but his public service spanned much of his life. He joined the town’s fire department at age 16, according to the obituary, and would eventually spend 14 years as its chief. Turner also worked as a real estate broker, housing developer and property manager.
“He was Mr. Milton himself, as some of us have called him,” said Milton Selectboard Chair Darren Adams. “He was definitely a man who wore many hats.”
Turner got his start in the family business, helping his father, Donald H. Turner, Sr., run the Milton Bowling Center and Don Turner and Sons Construction.
He had no political experience when then-Gov. Jim Douglas, a fellow Republican, appointed him to fill a vacancy in the Vermont House in 2006, but he quickly rose through the party’s ranks. In 2011, he was elected minority leader — charged with keeping his depleted caucus together as Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin took office.
“I didn’t really want to do it,” Turner later told Seven Days. “But I really want to make a difference.”
According to Rep. Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney, whom Turner named to a leadership position in 2017, he performed a challenging job with a smile on his face.
“I never saw him down,” said McCoy, who would later succeed Turner as minority leader. “He always came in with a positive attitude, which is difficult to do in the minority.”
For six of Turner’s eight years as minority leader, Democrat Shap Smith served opposite him as speaker of the House.
“Don and I had a lot of pitched battles, and we fought like cats and dogs, but we did get along very well,” Smith said, attributing their relationship to similarities in their upbringings and the working-class communities they represented. “He was a fighter and he wasn’t afraid to pull punches, but he was also somebody who got along with almost everybody.”
During Turner’s final term in the Legislature, he took Rep. Chris Mattos, R-Milton, under his wing. Mattos, with whom he’d worked at a real estate brokerage in town, had been appointed to fill a vacancy in Turner’s two-member House district — and the two of them took to commuting together to Montpelier.
“The biggest thing I got out of him in all his different roles was that he was the same guy in all of them,” said Mattos, who was elected to the state Senate last month. According to Mattos, Turner’s motto — in business and in politics — was, “If you take care of people, the people will take care of you.”
In 2018, Turner opted not to run for reelection and instead challenged Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, a Progressive/Democrat, for the state’s No. 2 job. He won the Republican primary without opposition but lost the general election to Zuckerman by a wide margin.
Douglas, the former governor, said Turner would have been an excellent lieutenant governor.
“He was a great leader,” Douglas said. “Everybody liked and respected him in the community, and that’s the essence of a good legislator and public servant of any kind.”
Throughout his tenure at the Statehouse, Turner simultaneously led the Milton Fire Department — helping to reinvigorate and professionalize the town’s rescue squad, according to Steve Burke, with whom he served in the department. And Turner didn’t just push papers.
“If he was at his desk and there was a shortage, he would jump on an ambulance and go with us,” Burke said. “He really led by being involved in it himself.”
Turner’s career ended where it began — in Milton. He agreed to serve as interim town manager in 2017 and then, a few months later, was hired to remain in the position.
In addition to the usual duties of a town manager, Turner could often be spotted shoveling snow outside the municipal building or riding a bucket truck to affix banners to light poles, according to Mattos, the Milton state rep.
“It really didn’t matter what the job was,” Mattos said. “He wasn’t above anything or anyone. He wouldn’t ask you to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.”
According to Adams, the selectboard chair, Turner’s motto as town manager was “to get stuff done.”
Among his greatest accomplishments in the role was to build a 27,000-square-foot public works building, a project that Adams said was decades in the making. So it was fitting that, after Turner became ill, the town decided to name the building the Don Turner Jr. Public Works Facility.
A week after a ribbon-cutting ceremony last month, Adams said, an ambulance taking Turner from a hospital facility to the respite house stopped by the new building so that he could see it.
“It brought a smile to his face to see the finished product,” Adams said.
Turner is survived by his wife of four decades, Gail; three daughters, Emily Turner-Frye, Hillary Joyal and Erin Turner; three grandchildren; his parents, Donald H. Turner, Sr., and Nancy Turner; and many others.
