It has often been said that it takes a village to raise a child. This is often true. Most certainly it took the many great people who lived in Onaway to watch over me and my friends in our youth, and to guide us to a good start along life’s path.

As a historian, I think it is also true that it took many villages, community leaders, and fine neighbors to help the countless numbers of people who have worked over the past century-and-a-half to make Cheboygan County the beautiful, prosperous and historical city and county we enjoy today.

It is impossible to mention all these hard-working people in a single column, but when we talk about building a strong community, there is one, and only one, person who stands out as a giant above the rest: my hero, Gordon Judson Turner.

Known fondly as “Scoop” and “Mr. Cheboygan,” Gordon Turner came to Cheboygan in 1927 to begin his newspaper career as a news reporter at the Daily Tribune. His starting salary was $10 a week. He planned to get some reporting experience and then move back downstate where salaries for reporters were much higher.

Within a few weeks, he came to love and admire the people and the surroundings of the beautiful Straits area. When he was offered $18 a week from a downstate paper to come work for them, he thought about it briefly and declined the offer. The Tribune bumped his pay up to $15 a week, so he decided to stick around for a while longer. Three months became 68 years. He later remarked, “This has been the longest three months of my life!’’

No story was too big or small for Scoop. He gave all of his life energy to the newspaper and community, and we became his family. He attended community events and reported on all the goings-on around town, people and history of Cheboygan County. He loved covering high school athletics, especially with two storied high schools in town, the Cheboygan High Chiefs and the Cheboygan Catholic High Eagles.

But his reporting wasn’t the only way Gordon found to help people: he was also a Sunday School teacher, member of the Kiwanis Club, Red Cross volunteer and Boy Scout leader.

Many people in Cheboygan still remember Gordon and his friendly personality, kind heart and gracious attention to detail he gave to everyone he met. He had a fantastic ability to remember names and facts.

I am blessed to have known and worked with Gordon as a fellow historian. He always encouraged and complimented my work, along with the work of many others. We worked together in perfect harmony to share our historical knowledge of Cheboygan County and its people.

Gordon was born in 1906 in Canada. His father was Seth Ransome Turner (1876-1968) and his mother was Gwendolyne Lisabell Joslyn Turner (1883-1940). Gordon was married to Alyce Elizabeth Vincent (1905-1954). Gordon and Alyce had one daughter by adoption, Shirley Ann Turner Chegwidden (1934-1987).

Gordon chronicled the lives and times and history of Cheboygan County for nearly 68 years. He had a loyal following in the Straits of Mackinac. People would often turn the pages of the Tribune to his column first, to see what was going on in the area.

In his later years, Gordon wore a toupée. It was known to slip out of place, giving him a unique appearance. It often caused people to smile or make a humorous comment. But they never quit loving him and he never quit digging on whatever he thought might make his next interesting story. He recorded a lot of history over those eight decades, much of it was previously unknown to most people. And he pounded out all of those stories on his very old Remington manual typewriter he had purchased a long time ago for $1.

Yes, Cheboygan loved Gordon, so much so they named their city park the Gordon Turner Park on the Straits of Mackinac at the mouth of the Cheboygan River. A noted journalist remarked that no one else in the country was known to have worked continuously and devotedly to a single newspaper (and community) as Scoop had.

“Mr. Cheboygan” kept writing and reporting until his death Nov. 27, 1995 at age 89. He had submitted his last column to the Tribune just a week before.