Randy Turner

Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

Randy joined the Free Press in 1987 and was assigned to the “rural beat,” which consisted of travelling to every town/hamlet/village in Manitoba in search of way-of-life stories, from the aging rural population to Elvis impersonators in Flin Flon.

Several years in news included one summer spent literally driving from Winnipeg “until you hit the Pacific Ocean,” filing human interest feature stories from the road.

Turner jumped to the sports department in 1993 to cover the inaugural season of the Winnipeg Goldeyes, which included criss-crossing the U.S. Midwest following the Fish for two years. In 1997, Turner began covering the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, which lasted until 1999 when he became the paper’s sports columnist.

Five Olympics, several World Junior hockey tournaments, Stanley Cup finals and Grey Cup finals later, Turner returned to the news department and since 2010 spent most of his time on long features, ranging from profiles of Brian Pallister to the life and times of exotic dancers and outlaw minor hockey.

Turner was nominated for seven National Newspaper Awards, winning on two occasions.

Turner was born and raised in small town Manitoba (Boissevain), which explained his affinity for any story involving animals, having once interviewed a farmer who dressed his cows in Christmas costumes.

He lost his battle with cancer on March 13, 2019.