Ralph Turlington, former Speaker of House, education commissioner, dies at 100

May 15—Ralph D. Turlington, who used keen political skills to create laws that shaped his home state, died Wednesday in North Carolina at age 100.

Among legislation he wrote and pushed through that changed Florida: the Government in the Sunshine law, the state employees' pension system, lowering the voting age to 18 and the state's first corporate income tax.

He represented Alachua County for 24 years in the state Legislature and along with state Sen. William Shands and state Rep. Osee Fagan secured a huge prize for their home town: the initial funding for a medical center at the University of Florida — now the statewide system known as UF Health.

Voters sent him to the state House of Representatives 12 times, and elected him three times more as the state's Commissioner of Education. He was elected the state's most valuable member, its most effective in debate and its most valuable committee member. He was Speaker of the House from 1966 to 1968.

In 1986, his final year in public office, he led a statewide campaign to establish a lottery to help fund education that continues today. He pushed for the lottery against much opposition, because he believed it necessary to keep Florida's schools competitive.

A liberal Democrat who entered the legislature when it was dominated by conservative, rural elected officials from North Florida known as the pork chop gang, Turlington was nonetheless well-liked by representatives from both rural and urban areas.

He reveled in the gritty work of legislation, his son, Donald Turlington, said Friday — the debates, the corralling of votes, the persuasion.

Turlington had a flair for words, with his political colleagues often asking that his speeches be entered into the official record after the day's proceedings. And unlike the name-calling antics seen in today's different-corners-of-the-universe politics, Turlington could disagree with his fellow elected officials in a most civil fashion.

Perhaps not quite convinced of a representative's veracity, he might say something like, "That's the most dishonest thing I've ever heard from an honest man," Donald Turlington said.

"Even if he was cutting you, he would not let you bleed too much," the younger Turlington said.

The state's Department of Education headquarters in Tallahassee bears Turlington's name. After his retirement, the terribly named "General Purpose Building A" at UF was renamed Turlington Hall, its plaza now an iconic campus location.

Turlington was born in Gainesville in 1920 and graduated in 1938 as the senior class president of the first class of what was then the brand new P.K. Yonge Laboratory School, and he remained loyal to the school for a lifetime.

"He'd sing you the P.K. Yonge school song whether you wanted to hear it or not," said longtime friend Frank Mirabella, chief cabinet aide and public information director for the education department during Turlington's tenure.

A UF business graduate, Turlington was business manager of the Florida Alligator and later elected to leadership fraternity Florida Blue Key. He went to Harvard University and earned a master's degree in 1943 and soon went to Europe as part of the U.S. Army.

He met and married Ann Gellerstedt of Atlanta upon his return. He joined the business school faculty at UF and later ran a successful insurance business before running for office the first time in 1950.

Mirabella, who met Turlington during his time in the legislature, said his reasons for entering public office and staying there were the right ones.

"He is the last of the great Florida statesmen," Mirabella said. "There are no more."

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