Turman got his start in Montana politics as mayor of Missoula in 1970, named to replace Republican Dick Shoup, who had resigned to run for Congress.
Turman won re-election as mayor that year and then was elected to the Legislature two years later. Yet at the end of his first term as a state representative, he and several other Republican House members walked out of a party meeting after it became apparent the party was organizing a committee to run primary candidates against members who weren’t deemed conservative enough.
He served on the PSC until 1980, when Ted Schwinden tapped him as running mate in Schwinden’s quest to defeat then-Gov. Tom Judge in the Democratic primary. Schwinden and Turman won an upset victory.
Turman served as lieutenant governor until 1988, when Schwinden appointed him one of two Montana representatives on the Northwest Power Planning Council.
Turman left that post in 1989 to become president of the National Center for Appropriate Technology in Butte, where he stayed until he retired in 1993, moving back to Missoula.
Turman was born in Missoula in 1928 and grew up there, earning an economics degree from the University of Montana. He served in the Army during the Korean War and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge.
He married Kathleen “Kay” Hager of Big Timber in 1951. He worked for the Federal Reserve Bank in Seattle and San Francisco but returned to Missoula in the 1960s, where he had a property-management business.
Turman is survived by his wife, three daughters, two sons, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
For more information, read Wednesday's Missoulian or go to Missoulian.com.
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