Camelot

In high school, much to the chagrin of my late mother, I graduated in the bottom academic half of my class - but I liked learning things. The simplicity and the complexity of the US Constitution (Mr. Herbert). A short story must have a single mood, and every sentence must contribute (Mr. Wills). All the horrible and wonderful things people have done in the last four thousand years, I wanted to know of. All of it. 

RON TURNER 1965

A good teacher touches the future. It is the magical “aha” moments. I owe my love of reading to the 1970’s English faculty of Crystal City, MO High School, to Mr. Robert Wills and Mr. Rodney Mills.  Fifty-three years ago, reading was not an escape for me; it was an aspect of direct experience of what my high school English classes exposed me to. 

As a fourteen-year-old, I did not distinguish between the fictional world of literacy and the real one. Reading was not a substitute refuge from reality, it was an extension of what I lived. I was what I read. I still am. 

Dr. Ron Turner taught Senior English and Speech at Crystal City High School during the 1963-64 and 1964-65 school terms. He was a recent graduate of Southwest Missouri State in Springfield, MO when at 20 years of age he signed a contract to join the CCHS faculty. 

I have recently found a connected kindred spirit in Turner of Columbia, MO. We have talked recently several times at length. Sixty-two years ago, he was a rookie wet-behind-the-ears CCHS English instructor and debate coach. 

Between us, Ron and I have walked this earth for over one and a half centuries and our common life’s denominator is the CCHS English Department and how it created an upward trajectory in our lives.

The hometown I grew up in was not perfect, but it was perfectly imperfect. We all need “that place” we unabatingly view through rose colored glasses. Ann Landers said they do not make rose colored glass with bifocals for good reason, “no one wants to read the fine print of their dreams.” 

Like the Arthurian years at Camelot, my 1960’s and 1970’s Crystal City memories constitute a fleeting moment of bliss - a time when a significant little chunk of my adolescent life was fantastic, confusing, compelling, and emotionally passionate - a mental bridge to expanding horizons seen through youthful eyes. 

We, in 2026, live in a time dominated by  the politics of “manipulativeness, indifference to morality, lack of empathy, and a calculated focus on self-interest” -  a Machiavellian bi-polar disconnect from calm.

 But be honest – it has always been this way; we just like to remember our youth as not so much. Watergate and the counter-revolutionary events of Vietnam, Woodstock and the Civil Rights movement dominated my youth. Today it is “drill baby, drill”. In 1968 it was “burn baby, burn”. This too shall pass. 

And this is why we all need a Camelot - a hidden brain Utopia where we can rest from our personal challenges. For me, Crystal City circa 1975, the year I graduated from the local high school, is my Shining City on the Hill, a neurological destiny where I safely store a self-collection of youthful spiritual awakenings. 

I asked Turner about his Crystal City 1963-1965 memories.

“When I graduated from Southwest Missouri State,” Turner says, “I was 20 years old and I saw a notice posted in the placement office that the Crystal City superintendent would be on campus to conduct interviews. That’s how I met Crystal City Superintendent David Max.”

Turner says shortly after the interview, he was hired. “He hired me but that summer I was scheduled to start work on my master’s on the Columbia campus of the University of Missouri, so I didn’t move to Crystal City until right before school started.”

High School students didn’t slow down for rookie teachers in those days. They swallowed them whole and waited to see who could breathe. Recently married, he jumped headfirst into a two-year adventure he now recalls with fondness. 

He took over a classroom that had not been always conducive to an orderly learning environment. On warm days during the previous year, those in need of a little fresh air would exit feet first through the open first story windows. And Turner’s new classroom shared a west wall with the Superintendent s’ office. Now, under both the spotlight and the microscope, the tasks the rookie Turner faced were daunting in both an intellectual and practical sense.  He says he thrived. 

Turner was not shaking in his boots as a first year teacher. He says he found his assignment not the least bit daunting. “Once classes started, the more I got into it, the more I enjoyed teaching the curriculum and interacting with the students just seemed natural,” he says. “It was not stressful at all.”

Turner’s teaching preparation was out of the norm. “During my last semester of my undergrad, I had an option to fulfill my student teaching requirement by directing a play at the Southwest Missouri State’s Greenwood Laboratory School instead of student teaching in a classroom,” he recalls. “I chose that and believe it or not, I only had a total of four hours of student teaching standing before a class. So, when I started in the fall of 1963 at Crystal City High School, I was really a rookie.” 

“The students (at CCHS) were great,” Turner recalls. “I was a good student myself, so I knew what academic performance was and my students at Crystal City performed. I was young, but I never considered that an issue. I wore a suit and tie, I think, every day that I was there. I dressed professionally and I acted professional and I think the students could sense that. Plus, teaching mostly seniors who were so well prepared so far as grammar by the time I got them, I focused on literature, and I think the students enjoyed that. Irma Jennings and Rodney Mills (fellow English Department staff) had had these (students) as freshman, sophomores and juniors and they were very well prepared in grammar.” 

Turner’s wife, Mary Jane, secured employment as a teacher at nearby DeSoto, MO High School. “My wife was a very good Business Education teacher. She comes from a long family line of teachers. She was just a natural. We made our home in DeSoto and every day I drove a 1953 Chevrolet from De Soto to Crystal City.”

His time as a Hornet was short lived, Turner says, but left on him memories more indelible than ink, molding him not only as the distinguished educator he became, but also as a man. “It was a great school, and I knew from the first day, I was blessed to be there. I loved every day of my time there.” 

Young people need models, not critics. Turner says he learned more himself in two years than he taught his students. “I made a lot of mistakes, but the students were patient with me, so well behaved and respectful is what I remember. And the staff took me under their wings. Rodney (Mills) was a young fellow English teacher. He was a local and graduated from CCHS and was well respected by both students and staff. I leaned on him a lot.”

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a nudge in the right direction. Turner found all in the school’s boiler room. It was a sort of de facto teachers’ lounge, lacking any no smoking signs, Turner recalls. 

“I would go to the boiler room each day to eat my bagged lunch. I am not sure where the (official) teachers’ lounge was. It was quite a (diverse) crew in the boiler room. It was mostly a male group, and the stories could get colorful. I am not sure where the female teachers ate lunch. And I have no recall of a student cafeteria in the building. Isn’t that strange?”

“Howard Cowan was the janitor, and he would always bring his lunch and eat with us. Howard knew everybody in town, and he knew all the inner workings of what made Crystal City run. Al Sherman was the band teacher, and he was a very interesting man. He played in a dance band in the evenings up in the Old Gaslight Square District in the city (St. Louis). He’d have some (insightful) stories to tell about how the city night life (flowed). Coach (Bill) Young was the baseball coach and he was big into horse races. After school when he wasn’t coaching, he usually hit the track. We got to hear the next day how well he did or didn’t do. It was just an (eclectic) group. I was young and I learned so much. I always looked forward to lunch in the boiler room.”

The spring of 1965 was the high-water mark for Crystal City athletics. Camelot in cleats. The football team had gone undefeated and was in the midst of an 18-game winning streak. Springtime saw the Hornet’s baseball team, in a game played at Busch Stadium against St. Louis Southwest, win the large school state championship. Hornet Randy Cayce set a state record that to this day still stands, with four stolen bases. And alum Bill Bradley was just finishing up his career at Princeton as the best collegiate basketball player in the nation. He was on his way to Oxford and two years as a Rhodes Scholar before returning to the States to claim two NBA titles as an all-star with the New York Knicks. He followed his basketball career with an 18-year run as a Democratic United States Senator from New Jersey. 

Randy Cayce was a student in Turner’s English class, “a good student.” And Bradley, Turner learned quickly, was a local treasure. In 1963 his halo glowed omnipresent over the school. “I didn’t know much about him in the fall of ’63,” Turner says. “His picture in his Princeton uniform hung in the front hallway, so I knew he was a big deal. Early in my first year I made some offhand remark about Bradley that was not accurate and Darly Kearns was in the class and was the football team’s quarterback. He set me straight,” Turner shares with a laugh. 

“Being the speech teacher,” Turner continues, “I was drafted into the role of PA announcer at the home basketball games. I had a good athletic background from my hometown years in Conway (a small rural burg in Southwest Missouri). “Sports were important to me growing up and I always respected the role sports played in (my hometown) community. That was a good background for my time at CCHS because the sports teams (at CCHS) were successful and a huge source of town pride, and the athletes in my class were like all my students, respectful.”

“I had little contact with Arvel Popp,” long time Hornet Hall of Fame football and basketball coach, Turner recalls. “We operated in completely different universes.” Turner said he knew of Popp’s reputation of respect throughout the school. “One of the few times I spoke to him directly was the spring of my second year, when I had announced I was leaving. He made a point of approaching me and told me that leaving Crystal City High School would be the biggest mistake I would ever make,” Turner recalls with a chuckle, proving that when it came to loyalty, Popp-a man of few words- bled Hornet Red and Black.

“I only had one discipline issue with a student,” Turner says. “I remember he was a football player, and he responded to me in a way that I took as disrespectful. I sent him to see (Principal) Mr. (Edward) Rapp. It was taken care of. That was early in my first year. I don’t recall ever again (referring) anyone to the office. Mr. Rapp ran a very orderly school.”

After two years it was time for Turner to move on.  “I had an offer in the spring of 1965 to return to the campus in Columbia with a full scholarship to finish my master’s and then get into my doctoral program. I took that, it was too good to pass up, and I finished my doctorate in 1971. Then, we went to Lincoln, Nebraska for seven years. I oversaw educational TV for the state of Nebraska. While in Lincoln, our three boys were born, and it seemed like I was never home. My big job was fundraising. I was always in Washington DC or New York City doing that. So, I wanted something a little more home based.”

“I had an offer to return to the University of Missouri with an office located, as administrative associate Dean, in St. Louis on the University of Missouri- St. Louis campus. I did that from 1977 to 1985. I then returned to Columbia and had a lot of different duties but Special Assistant to the President was my general title. I retired from the University of Missouri in 2005. I recently fell and broke a hip, but I am rehabbing that and for 83 years of age, I am doing well.”

Dr. Ron Turner currently holds the title of Executive Vice President Emeritus.

 Often, we confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy. But Turner’s professional life has been one of both activity and productivity. 

Turner’s resume is loaded with titles and activities: he  directed the University of Missouri South African Education Program from inception through its first 18 years, served as Senior Fellow in the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs, served 2 terms on the Board of Directors of the National Storytelling Association, received a Lifetime Achievement Award as founding chairman of the award-winning St. Louis Storytelling Festival. And he authored an award-winning screenplay: “Offsides: The Revolution in College Football”.

Turner has lived 83 years of what he calls his Golden Years. When you start being enthusiastic about whatever you like, he points out, then that is the golden age for you, and his golden age, he notes, has covered a lifetime. 

The Crystal City High School student body in 1965 dedicated the yearbook to 23-year-old second year teacher Ron Turner. That says a lot. It was noted in the dedication proclamation that Turner was always ready to give extra help and attention to a student in need.        

Young teachers walk through the schoolhouse doors brimming with the enthusiasm of one ready to change the world. Tragically, most will have the carpet of idealism pulled out from under their feet. Ron Turner says he never did. 

I believe God has instilled in us a hunger, a deep hankering to ride with Him on a fabulous five-star adventure. To not jump on board is to deny our ordained and predestined life’s journey. I believe that. There must be a reason for living.  Yet many of us crawl along in life without even a glimpse of our hidden passion. 

A short two-year stint on the star-studied CCHS faculty, over 60 years ago, opened Ron Turner’s eyes to his hidden passion - the blessings and impact of education, a destiny bound with the destinies of others. The ripples are still felt today. That is the beauty of teaching. 

Camelot. Crystal City in 1965 was a very fine town, and the high school, which stood in the middle of it, on a hill, was truly majestic. A good beginning makes a good end. And for rookie educator Ron Turner, it all began there.