She sounded like a great teacher. Anyone know her? http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...ID=20109011027

Dorothy Turner, 86, a champion of the nursing profession who in 1959 helped start a pioneering program at what is now the State College of Florida, died Aug. 15 in Sarasota.

When she retired from Manatee Junior College in 1983, one of that year's nursing graduates told the Herald-Tribune she would always remember Turner walking around with black-and-blue arms from letting students practice inserting IV tubes. When asked about this, Turner smiled and said, "Well, they have to learn it, don't they?"

Turner told the newspaper at the time that her retirement plans included exploring the West and learning more about computer-assisted education for nurses. But a friend, Vicki Davis-Wrench, said Turner had only a short time to enjoy her leisure before experiencing medical setbacks that began with cancer and ended with dementia.

She lived with Davis-Wrench and her husband, in what was intended to be a temporary arrangement but lasted almost until her death.

"When I would take her to her doctors visits, many of the nurses we met had been her students, and they all just loved her," Davis-Wrench recalled. "She would remember almost every student's name, until her dementia progressed."

Turner, born in Baxter Springs, Kan., studied nursing at Wayne State University in Detroit.

In Sarasota, she served as director of nursing at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, started the Licensed Practical Nurse program at Sarasota Vocational-Technical Center, directed nursing for the Sarasota County Health Department and started a visiting nurse program in the county. She had one son, Richard Pokrifke, who Davis-Wrench said died at the age of 7, in an accidental drowning while swimming with a friend in the Peace River.

"She didn't have an easy life, but she never complained," said Davis-Wrench, who met Turner while working as a nurse at Sarasota Memorial. "She was a nurse's nurse. Everybody loved her."

Jo Thomas, a former student of Turner's who worked at Sarasota Memorial from 1969 until retiring this year, remembered Turner for "how much she loved nursing." As a teacher, Thomas said, Turner treated nursing as a profession and a calling.

Her most memorable trait, she added, was her demeanor.

"I remember that she had such a calmness about her," Thomas said, "and no matter what kind of mistakes we made -- and we made plenty -- nothing seemed to rattle her. When you work at a hospital, everyone around you is so hyper. But she was like a rock to us."

Turner is survived by a cousin. Arrangements are being handled by the National Cremation & Burial Society of Sarasota.