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COLUMN: Goodbye, 'Bubba'

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By STEVE OTTO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 18, 2007

"Newspapers serve up a daily slice of life, and some of them – just like people and neighborhoods – flourish, grow old and die."

That was the opening line for the final story of the final edition of The Tampa Times that Aug. 14 back in 1982. The story was written by Bob Turner and was under the headline "So long and 30 from Times."

Turner, who passed away Sunday, was a natural to write that afternoon newspaper's obituary. A wordsmith, historian and a newspaperman, he as well as anyone understood the value and the relationship of a newspaper to the community it served.

In the newsroom, Bubba was a legendary editor. He didn't look like a Bubba. Tall, bald, usually wearing white shirt and tie, he was the newsroom's anchor. Here was a guy who collected dictionaries. If you had a question, and this was in those dark ages before you went directly to Google, you went looking for Turner.

Barry Friedman was one of those young reporters. Today he's a big whoopee at the Lakeland Ledger. "He told us – and I've passed this on here for years – that reporters needed to know as much about a subject as the source they were interviewing. They had to be prepared to ask the right questions and understand the answers."

Speaking of big whoopees, Bill Warren is head of media relations for Walt Disney World. But he remembers the day he showed up for a promised job at The Tampa Times only to find it was filled. "Instead they offered me the job of covering city hall.

"I had no idea what I was doing,'' he said, "and the editors were riding me pretty hard. For some reason Bob Turner took an interest in me. He looked over every story, made daily suggestions and pretty much kept me under his wing for about six months – until I had it figured out.''

Richard Bockman now is an editor at the St. Petersburg Times. "Hope you mention the notes he used to send to all the reporters. I once wrote a feature on the medical examiner's office and witnessed an autopsy. I wrote that the ME showed in the brain a "contracoup" injury, where the head is hit on one side but the damage to the brain shows on the opposite side from where the brain impacted the skull. So Bob sends me the sweetest note: Great story he wrote; how wonderful that I attended an autopsy to bring it to life. Great detail. And then he finishes with a side note: Next time, it's contrecoup, with an "e," because it's from the French, contre, for counter, and coup, for blow. It's a counter blow.

"It's amazing – 26 years ago, and I've never forgotten that lesson. I keep waiting for a chance to use contrecoup in a story, but it hasn't happened."

Novelist Ace Atkins last year published "White Shadow," a fictionalized account of the notorious murder of Charlie Wall in Tampa. His protagonist in the book is named L.B. Turner and is based on the real exploits of Turner, who was on the scene that steamy day in 1955 in Ybor City as a reporter for The Tampa Times.

Bubba closed his final story on the demise of the Times, writing about "30."

"Newspaper editors and reporters are an argumentative and disputatious lot, and I know for a fact there are at least 13 different theories on where 'thirty' came from to end a story.

"But it seems as good a way as any to wrap things up, and so to all, our readers and colleagues, in this experience of a lifetime: So long and 30."

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