Pat Turner

I was raised seven and a half miles up the Entiat Valley where my parents were third

generation in the home my great-grandfather built. I am an only child and most of my activities

were outside. My parents and I learned to snow ski when I was five on our local ski hill above

Ardenvoir. I played tennis in high school as it was the only sport available for girls.

Two days before Christmas I was in a car accident on Wenatchee Avenue. The next

three months were spent in the Deaconess Hospital recovering from my injuries. My life was and

continues to be directed from the result of this accident.

Six months after my accident I graduated from Entiat high school, then attended

Wenatchee Valley College, and later graduated from Central Washington University with a BA

in Special Education. My first teaching assignment was in northern California, where I received

my Fifth year at California State University, Sacramento, concentrating on social science. I

returned to the Wenatchee Valley and after a total of thirty-eight years of being contracted I

retired.

Physical and up-in-the-air activities strengthen my mental health. Physical included:

three-track downhill skiing, single water skiing, riding a tandem bicycle with my husband, going

to the gym and wheelchair bowling in a league. Up-in-the air activities: gliding, zip-lining,

parasailing, riding in a hot air balloon, and sky diving. Having one leg has never defined who I

am. This is evident in my recently published book “Skiing Uphill”.

Inside activities: painting kindness works and crocheting bookmarks in the shape of a

worm. To date they have traveled to thirty-eight parts of the world with friends or people we

meet on vacation.

Travel includes: Mazatlan Mexico and New Zealand. One day I may slow down, but not

anytime soon.