Turner was instrumental in arranging a reunion of the
stars of the iconic surf movie “The Endless Summer”
for the film’s 50th anniversary in 2016. Left to right:
Mike Hynson, Bruce Brown, Turner, Robert August and
Robert “Wingnut” Weaver.
Turner with Ian Cairns and Shaun Tomson, two
professionals featured in “Bustin’ Down The Door,”
a documentary chronicling surfers from Australia
and South Africa who revolutionized Hawaiian surf
culture in 1975.
WBM FILE PHOTO COURTESY OF ROY TURNER COURTESY OF ROY TURNER
Roy Turner (right), with Will Allison and Jo Pickett,
was among the experts invited to discuss the local
surfing scene at Wrightsville Beach Magazine’s “Let’s
Talk: Surfing Dinner” in 2005.
“He always gave people his time,” Barden says. “He was
my mentor and lifelong friend. He was an ambassador for
Wrightsville Beach.”
Turner is responsible for many firsts: he put the first web-cam
at the beach “so us lazy surfers could have our eyes on
the conditions,” Barden says; he was the first to sell merchan-dise
online; he helped bring the first national pro event to
trending
COURTESY OF ROY TURNER
Wrightsville; and he helped establish the Wrightsville Beach
Longboard Association.
But Butler, president of wblivesurf.com and Hope From
Roy Turner in a
Helen, agrees Turner’s most lasting contribution came
recent photo.
through his role as mentor and friend.
“I would try to emulate Roy Turner,” Butler says. “I wanted to be just like him. He
shaped many, many surfers.”
Turner merely treated people the way he was treated when he moved to
Wrightsville in the late ’70s.
“It didn’t take me long to find my way to C Street,” he says.
C Street is Columbia Street, where the surfers congregated before the sun was up.
“You had to drive down here every morning at 6 a.m. to see if you could surf,” he
says. “There’d be a line of cars. We’d all go check to see if there was surf. It was really
special.”
Turner was quickly welcomed into the fraternity, even if at first the pecking order
kept him from the best waves.
“The connections were always there,” he says. “Whether you were hanging around
C Street and checking the surf or talking about the swell, you became part of some-thing
special. That’s what the surfing community at Wrightsville is.”
The word about the special community began to spread outside southeast-ern
North Carolina when Turner and Allison brought the Record Bar Surfabout to
Wrightsville Beach in 1984. The event was a stop on the ASP World Tour and brought
the top pros to town.
“It was pretty amazing, sitting on the pier or sitting on the dock and watching
these guys surf,” Turner says. “I don’t think at the time everybody understood what
was happening. All of a sudden we’re on the pro tour calendar. We had the best surf-ers
in the world on Wrightsville Beach for three years in a row. It just really opened it
up. That was a game-changer for us.”
They surfed at Wrightsville, and then went home and told others about the pas-sionate,
dedicated group that rode the waves off the North Carolina coast.
“He established Wrightsville Beach as a surfing destination,” Barden says.
Turner now works in Atlanta as show director for Surf Expo, a twice-yearly trade
show for people in the industry. But he hasn’t forgotten his local roots.
“I can promise you, when they ask what my home break is, I have no problem fly-ing
the colors. I’m from Wrightsville Beach,” he says. “There’s a Southern hospitality
here, a quality of life here, that all surfers strive for no matter where they are in the
world. I’m so fortunate to have been here.”
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