Turner South presented 2010 Governor’s Award for Excellence

Turner South, a classification coordinator at Marion Correctional Institution, received the Governor's Award for Excellence this week in the category of human relations.

Early one evening last February, Turner picked up a young man who was walking along an interstate highway, wearing only the green garb of a minimum custody inmate. The man told Turner he was trying to get to a Wal-Mart.

On their way and over the next hour or so, Turner made several phone calls and learned that the young man was a former DOC inmate who had been released on detainer to a local law enforcement agency earlier in the day.  However, the local jail eventually found no need to hold him and released him with no means to get home.

At Wal-Mart, Turner bought some new clothes for the former inmate. He spoke by phone to the young man’s mother and arranged for him to have a room overnight at a local motel.

The state does what it can to prepare inmates for successful release, but not all releases are the same, as Turner learned that night. Ultimately, Turner was a great ambassador for the State of North Carolina: He showed compassion and used his own resources to treat another human being with dignity and respect.