Theardis Martino (left) believed deeply in the idea of memorializing his cousin, Al Turner (right) - who shared such community passions as the Inner-City Rotary Club and Onpoint for College. But Martino died in April, three months before Saturday's ceremony at Kirk Park, honoring Turner. Credit: Courtesy Ginny Donohue

The rebirth of the Kirk Park Colts happened 35 years ago. Mark and Karla Hall, a couple who sensed a fierce need in the heart of Syracuse, were at the center of that revival of Pop Warner youth football and cheerleading on the city’s South Side, a vision intertwined with imperatives about academics and community.

The effort caught on in a lasting way. Mark Hall said that sort of initiative cannot succeed or endure without the quiet help of countless volunteers, women and men willing to do the “odds and ends stuff that people didn’t notice.”

No one, Hall said, better defined that role than Al Turner, who was at Kirk Park early and always stayed late, a volunteer willing to do whatever was needed — whether it involved lining the field or tying children’s shoelaces or making sure a pair of shoulder pads were on correctly.

“He’s the kind of guy,” said Hall, “who watches out for everything.”

There it is. Expand that energy and commitment to multiple neighborhoods and community programs, and such lifetime commitment will result in this kind of tribute: On Saturday, the Syracuse Inner-City Rotary Club will oversee an 11 a.m. public ceremony at Kirk Park, where a city-prepared plaque will be unveiled on a new bench dedicated to Turner’s memory, near the busy entrance to the swimming pool.

Janelle Kraus, president of the Syracuse Inner-City Rotary Club, with a new bench at Kirk Park that will be formally dedicated Saturday, for Al Turner. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

While Turner had no children of his own, the bench is intended to make a lasting point: His daughters and sons are the countless young people in Syracuse he supported at crucial moments in their lives.

“We’re all connected in this community,” said Janelle Kraus, the Rotary Club president who succeeded Turner in that key role after his death in 2023, at 71. She is also a funeral home director with the Shepardson Family Funeral Homes of Syracuse. She said Turner, a Rotarian for decades, exemplified the ideals of collaboration and empathy.

“He was always open to suggestions and ideas,” said Kraus, recalling how she joined Turner at Boys and Girls Club of Syracuse “Bitty Basketball” games — an effort the Rotary supports and Turner believed in, with passion.

When Kraus was brand-new to the Rotary, Turner made her feel welcome. She said he was never threatened by new blood or innovations, but instead stood behind her when she had ideas. He was president of the Rotary when he died, and it was Turner who nominated Kraus to be the Rotary recipient of what is now called the Al Turner Presidential Award.

Kraus described herself as “deeply spiritual,” with a belief system that she said is only amplified by her funeral home work. Sitting Thursday on the new bench at Kirk Park, in a warm breeze thick with the smoke of faraway Canadian wildfires, Kraus said she is confident that Turner, unseen, will still be watching from that bench, looking out as always for neighborhood children as they use the pool or nearby athletic fields.

Within her own childhood, Kraus recalled growing up without much in the way of money or possessions. The single biggest factor in her eventual success was the patient love of key mentors, she said. Kraus — making a point echoed by many others, in many organizations — said Turner played a similar role for countless young people in a fashion that all too often went unnoticed.

Al Turner: Always supporting community endeavors – whether athletic, musical or more than anything, focused on kids. Credit: Courtesy Reggie Seigler

“Nobody got it like him,” said Ginny Donohue, founder of On Point for College, which has helped thousands of first-generation college students in Syracuse to navigate and succeed in the transition to living and learning on campus. “He got the soul of it.”

The ceremony Saturday has been in the works for a long time, and was of particular importance to Theardis Martino, a longtime Syracuse businessman, a founder of the Inner-City Rotary and a cousin and close confidant of Turner’s.

Yet Martino died at 83 in April, which to an extended family still grieving for Turner feels like the second impact of a one-two combination. His absence will be felt Saturday in a sweeping manner when a crowd gathers at Kirk Park, and Kraus said community discussions are already underway about the best way of honoring Martino — a guy who will also be central to a related column I’m planning in the near future.

Reggie Seigler — a Section III coordinator with the Syracuse Housing Authority, and a cousin to both men — remembers many times, on his way home from work, stopping by Martino’s South Side office simply for the quiet pleasure of shooting the breeze at day’s end with Turner and Martino.

Ask Seigler about Turner, and the first thing he describes is “this unique, hardy, gutty laugh, a genuine laugh.” He remembers how Martino and Turner would often team up to host unforgettable family fish fries — “his love for family was unmatched,” Seigler said of Turner — and how Turner, “if he saw you anywhere, he was going to stop and make sure to talk to you.”

Al Turner, selfless legend of Syracuse. Credit: Courtesy Reggie Siegler

“He was also very generous, if you were selling tickets or needed a sponsorship or whatever,” said Seigler, a longtime musician and promoter who said Turner was a guy of many civic interests – including a detailed knowledge of Syracuse University athletics.

Sandy Eure, one of Turner’s four siblings, said her brother always felt a deep connection to family heritage. He was close to his late grandparents, George and Ola Turner – a grandmother who lived to be 105. Eure remembered how her parents, Lois and the late William Eure, constantly emphasized the life-changing power of education to their children, who all responded by earning college degrees.

Turner, a Nottingham High School graduate, embraced the Upward Bound program at Le Moyne College, then attended college at Ohio Wesleyan University — though he returned home, a little short of his degree, to work for AT&T and Verizon for 36 years.

Kraus and others who knew Turner say it is particularly fitting that his name was among those held aloft on placards at the May “Light a Candle for Literacy” parade. Marchers honored community elders, lost in recent years, who always maintained a devotion to reading in particular and education in general – priorities Turner emphasized by example, in his own life.

More than a decade ago, he enrolled in Syracuse University’s University College, with dreams of completing his work toward a diploma. Eure said their grandmother vowed she would live to see him walk the stage. As retired SU administrator Rosemary Barboni Kelly recalls, the 103-year-old Ola Turner achieved that goal in 2013, watching from the audience on the same evening Turner delivered an emotional convocation address.

She listened as then-SU chancellor Kent Syverud described Turner’s story as emblematic of the extraordinary reach and aspirations of University College graduates — which made Turner and his fellow graduates, as Syverud put it:

“Glorious.”

Al Turner graduates from Syracuse University’s University College, in 2013: His mother and grandmother, who was 103 years old, were there to see it. Credit: Courtesy Ginny Donohue

That degree, for all its beauty, was only one element of the larger tale. Turner’s entire focus beyond work was the community: The Inner-City Rotary. The Colts. On Point. The 100 Black Men organization. His church life at Bethany Baptist.

“He was a talker,” said Eure, laughing softly while recalling how Turner became an instant presence in any room he entered.

His death drew a passionate response from many young people who knew him from On Point, organizers say. “He did it all for us for many years,” said Sam Rowser, executive director of the program, who joined Donohue in describing how Turner offered warm affinity to teenagers coming out of particularly difficult circumstance — whether that was a young woman raised in foster care who always called him “grampa,” or students who had endured childhood trauma, as refugees.

Rowser and Donohue said Turner spent countless hours driving students to college who had no other way to get there — and then he would return, when campus breaks rolled around, to drive them home. If they needed help with documents, or applications, or simply with advice, Turner made sure he was available.

“Behind the scenes,” Donohue said, “he was there for everybody.”

Al Turner, in recent years. Credit: Courtesy Reggie Seigler

Roger Knight, 77, a writer and advocate who is also deeply involved with On Point, saw that empathy in direct fashion. He and Turner were close friends. Four years ago, when Knight learned he had cancer, Turner — who understood that struggle in a deeply personal way — insisted that Knight allow him to go along for support on his next visit to the doctor’s.

“That was profound,” said Knight, offering a three-word summary of Al Turner’s life.

Editor’s note: Sam Rowser, who is quoted in this story, serves as a Central Current board member.

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Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Central Current. He has been an Upstate journalist for more than 50 years. He held his first reporting job as a teenager and worked for newspapers in Dunkirk, Niagara...