Mayor Renee Turk graduated from Roanoke College in 1977 after spending her first
\ntwo years at Virginia Western Community College. As a commuter, she graduated with
\na degree in business, education, and economics. Turk was a cheerleader, a caterer for
\nevents, and a member of Chi-O. She lauded Roanoke College for being \u201can excellent
\nschool with an unbelievable business program, great teachers, and a pusher of critical
\nthinking.\u201d Turk\u2019s grandparents are from Lebanon, has visited the area, she has
\ndeep connections there and would like to express her deep concern for the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would never have though when I was a student at Roanoke College that I would
\none day be the mayor of Salem. The one thing I always said is if there\u2019s something I
\nneed to learn or something I want to do, I can do it. I will teach myself, I will do the
\nresearch, I will work on it and make sure I\u2019m comfortable.\u201d It is that mentality that set
\nher up to sell cars at a Saturn dealership shortly after being hired as a secretary.
\nTurk used her degrees to help her enter a life of teaching where, once she gained
\ncertification through serving as a sub and classes at JMU and Radford, she was hired by
\nWilliam Fleming. \u201cI taught students in Roanoke City the theory behind computers with
\npunch cards since it was the early 80s. After five years of that I got a call from Walter
\nHunt, the superindent for Roanoke City schools, to be interviewed. I wasn\u2019t sure I was
\ngoing to do it at first but I\u2019m glad I did because I got offered a job to teach at Salem
\nHigh school.\u201d Turk taught computer concepts there for four years before she chose to
\nstay home to raise her kids. \u201cTeaching was my favorite profession. I think I\u2019m a natural
\nfor it because everyone tells me I sound like I\u2019m lecturing them!\u201d<\/p>\n
She has been Salem\u2019s mayor since 2020 and is running for reelection this fall on the
\nsame ballot as the national ticket. \u201cAs mayor, I\u2019ve made it a point to network as much
\nas possible. I go to state conferences, regional meetings, and I think the important
\nthing is you don\u2019t have to solve an issue by yourself. Usually it\u2019s an issue that
\nsomebody else has, just on a different scale. So making friends with those people is
\nwhat helps you to pick up the phone and call someone who can share their experience
\non the issue.\u201d Turk\u2019s experience teaching students parliamentary law and being
\nsponsor for FBLA prepared he well for leading city council meetings with little wisdom
\nfrom her predecessors at her disposal.
\nIf you want to speak at a city council meeting, you can head to salemva.gov and find
\nthe tab \u201cHow do I speak at Council\u201d. You have to apply to speak before the Friday<\/p>\n
before the meeting on Monday. The agenda for the meeting gets posted usually on
\nWednesday afternoon before the meeting. Speakers have a limit of five minutes and it
\nis only a time to present thoughts and information for council to take into
\nconsideration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to go horseback riding if I had the day off! It\u2019s been a long time but I
\nenjoy it tremendously. I also enjoy playing the guitar and singing with friends.\u201d
\nTurk is grateful for her entire family. \u201cMy husband, David; he\u2019s really my rock and he\u2019s
\nthe person I get to complain to and he gets to listen. I like having him at meetings
\nbecause then he can watch my body language and tell me what I missed! My brother,
\nwho went to Roanoke College with me and served on Roanoke City Council for eight
\nyears, is another great person for me bounce something off of.\u201d Early voting has
\nstarted in Virginia, so if you can, please order a ballot and make sure you vote up and
\ndown the ballot!<\/p>\n
Juniper Rogers<\/p>\n
Section Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mayor Renee Turk graduated from Roanoke College in 1977 after spending her first two years at Virginia Western Community College. As a commuter, she graduated with a degree in business, education, and economics. Turk was a cheerleader, a caterer for events, and a member of Chi-O. She lauded Roanoke College for being \u201can excellent school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":7904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folks-at-noke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Headshot-PP-blue-jacket.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}