AVON — Dean F. Turner, 81, a former member of the Indiana State Fair Board and one of Hendricks County’s most prominent farmers and Democrats, died Sunday at an Indianapolis hospital after an illness.

Calling will be from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Hampton Gentry Funeral Home in Plainfield. Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday in the Plainfield Friends Meeting church on Main Street in Plainfield.

Known for his down-to-earth approach to business, farming and government, “Dean was a top-notch guy who always told it like it is, even if you didn’t agree,” said long time neighbor and county fair board member Ralph Dunkin.
Turner and his wife Carolyn were involved more than six decades in 4-H programs and at the Hendricks County Fair Board for 36 years.

He served on the Indiana State Fair Board and the State Fair Commission — appointed to represent a district of 19 west central Indiana counties — during the 1990s.

Turner was elected in the 1970s to the Hendricks County Council. He was the last Democrat elected to countywide office in the Republican-dominated county.

He later served on the county plan commission, helping to shape the development of the county in the western portion of the Indianapolis metro region and preparing it for the explosion of growth during the 1990s.

It was his opposition to the incorporation of Avon as a town covering all of Washington Township that eventually helped reshape and scale down the size of the town when it was officially formed in 1995. The Turner family farms along Dan Jones Road came to form a buffer of unannexed area between Avon and Plainfield.

He formerly was president of the Avon School Board and was the current president of the holding corporation for constructing new school buildings. He also was a current member of the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Merit Board.