MEMBER SPOTLIGHT ON TOM SAMPLES PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR
FRANK TURNER General Manager, Tennessee Green Lawn and Landscape
How did you get into the turfgrass industry?
I started when I was in high school, I took a job at a golf course in Hendersonville at Bluegrass Country Club. I’d played golf before, I enjoyed the game of golf, and it was just an opportunity for a summer job, so I took that after graduating high school. My freshman year in college, I was planning to major in forestry. I noticed quite a few students in that program (this was the early 70s and I think everybody wanted to be in forestry), and it looked like the job market might not be that favorable after four years. I went and talked to the department head at UT and found out that they offered a program in turfgrass management, so I changed my major going into my sophomore year. Dr. Lloyd Callahan was my advisor throughout my four years at UT, and I still remember speaking to him the very first time, asking him about job possibilities and what the program was like. How did you start actually working in the business?
Dr. Callahan was instrumental in pretty much all of the golf course jobs that I got after I graduated from UT, indirectly or directly. He had encouraged me to apply for a scholarship from the Georgia Golf
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Course Superintendents Association, which was the Charlie Danner Scholarship, and I was fortunate enough to receive that award. I received that scholarship award and was asked to apply for the position of assistant superintendent at Capitol City Country Club in Atlanta. I took that job, and I was there for about two-and-a-half years before moving back to Tennessee for a superintendent’s position at Graymere Country Club in Columbia, Tennessee. I was in Columbia for about six years. In October of 1986, I took the superintendent’s job at Cherokee Country Club in Knoxville and was there from 1986 to 1998. I’m thankful that I was given an opportunity with the Litton Cochran family here in Knoxville to form, build and supervise a landscape department. They were owner-operators of 31 McDonald’s restaurants in and around Knoxville, and we worked exclusively for them and within their company, just maintaining their properties.
Mountaintop Golf & Lake Club, Cashiers, N.C. October 2015, Frank Turner, Roger Frazier, Jeff Rumph. Frank’s son, Brock Turner, was the Assistant GC Superintendent at the time.
TENNESSEE TURFGRASS DECEMBER/JANUARY 2021 Email TTA at: info@ttaonline.org
