A subdued Ted Turner sat in his office on a cloudy and drizzly Election Day to talk about his place in life on the eve of turning 80 years old on Nov. 19.
An intimate birthday celebration in Turner’s honor will be held Nov. 17 for family, close friends and colleagues from around the country to toast a man who is a legend in his own time.
In life, we meet a few special people who stand out above the rest.
For me, one of those special people is Ted Turner – someone who has changed our nation’s media landscape and someone who has done all he could to make the world a better place.
By David Pendered
Ted Turner is now formally honored by the blue-blazer crowd of the yachting world. The New York Yacht Club marked the 40th anniversary of Turner’s victory in the America’s Cup, in 1977, by awarding Turner the highest individual honor the club bestows.
This is a significant bow from a club with an autocratic reputation, one that took its time in even extending a membership offer to Turner. Evidently, back in the day, the club’s leadership had determined that Turner wasn’t a good fit in a private club founded in 1844 by a scion of one of the nation’s founders and led since by a host of mostly Northern bluebloods.
After a brutal presidential campaign and election season, it has been a struggle to envision a brighter future for our nation and our world.
My emotions have vacillated from despair about the future of our planet to concern about the future of our cities to empathy for the millions of people seeking a better life – hoping to find comfort and acceptance in America.
With that backdrop, I attended two distinctly different events last week that helped give me hope for the future.
When Atlanta media mogul Ted Turner gave $1 billion in 1997 to establish the U.N. Foundation, it broke the mold of major philanthropic contributions.
Nearly 20 years later – Turner received the Global Philanthropist Award from UNICEF’s Southeast region at its Children First event on March 30.
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