Richard Eyring Turley Sr.
1930-2021
Richard Eyring Turley – known to friends and family as Dick – was born on December 29, 1930 in El Paso, Texas, to Edward Vernon Turley and Winifred Louise Roche. During his youth, he visited his family in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, where his father was born, and enjoyed participating in ranch activities. Intellectually bright, he skipped two grades and went to college in Texas A&M at the age of sixteen.
From 1950 to 1953 he served as a Latter-day Saint missionary in Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. On April 1, 1954, he married Betty Jean Nickle in the Salt Lake Temple and they had seven children and grandparents of thirty-six, with large and growing offspring today.
After his marriage, he received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Utah and accepted a position at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas. He later became an engineer at the El Paso (Texas) Natural Gas Company, where he worked as an Assistant Professor of Engineering at the University of Utah until he was recruited.
In 1963 he became an assistant and then an associate professor at Iowa State University in Ames. After receiving a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Iowa State in 1967, he worked as a manager at the Battelle Institute in Richland, Washington. In 1972 he became a professor of engineering at the University of Utah and executive director of the Utah Nuclear Energy Commission, a position that made him the state’s first scientific advisor. Over the years he became executive director and later president of Utah Technology Finance Corporation.
He served actively in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had many callings throughout his adult life. He has served as a bishop’s counselor, bishop (three times), high councilor, counselor in a district presidency, and counselor in a stake presidency. From 1983 to 1985 he was president of the Mexico Hermosillo Mission. He was a General Authority Seventy from 1997 to 2000, serving part of that service as a counselor in the South Mexico Area Presidency and the remainder as assistant executive director in the Church’s Family History Department.
With all his other accomplishments, nothing meant more to him than his family. In 2009 he was preceded by his wife Betty Jean Nickle Turley in death. He leaves behind his wife Ana-Maria Garces and their daughter Elena Noguero; his seven children and their surviving spouses Winifred Jean Nuttall, Richard E. (Shirley) Jr., Stephanie Jane (Blair) Dowd, Teresa JoAn (Carey) Wise, William Nickle (Joan), Jeffrey Dahlman (Lisa) and David Roche (Scheri ); and many other descendants, relatives and friends.
The funeral will take place on Friday, October 22, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. at the Ensign Stake Center, 135 A Street, Salt Lake City. The night before, there will be a tour of Larkin Mortuary, 260 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City, from 6:00 am to 8:00 am, and the stake center from 9:00 am to 10:30 am Friday morning. Those who cannot attend the funeral in person can follow it remotely using the following zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87434881177
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Published by The Salt Lake Tribune October 14-15, 2021.
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