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While naturally gregarious, he didn’t make friends easily, though he certainly got attention. He excelled at practical jokes—planting clocks around the room, all set to go off at different times, letting squirrels loose in the dorm or releasing birds from beneath his desk, setting buckets of water to rain on people’s heads. He climbed out windows during class and refused to polish his shoes or follow the dress standards. Collecting demerits by the dozens, he became a fixture in the “bullpen,” marching with his rifle for hours on end as punishment for his infractions.

I went out and convinced the employees to buy stock in the company. I sold off all the real estate that I possibly could to raise cash. I sold my father’s plantation. I borrowed against our accounts receivable. ”2 While his father had largely gone it alone, Turner made a point of becoming involved with the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), giving speeches and having them quoted regularly in its newsletter. He made sure to take prominent booths at business expositions, and he built what was then one of the largest painted billboards in the country along the Atlanta Freeway Connector.

The trip didn’t turn out exactly as he had planned. With rough weather and heavy seas dampening the leisure and Ted keeping to himself most of the time, everyone just wanted it over. In midFebruary 1958, Ted joined the Coast Guard for a six-month stint in Cape May, New Jersey. He professes to have been company commander while leading his team in a series of wins in a weekly Honor competition, but biographers who claim to have checked the records say there were no mentions of Turner having stood out at all; in any case, he was released just in time to make the fall semester at Brown.