By all accounts, Allen Turner is a long way from home.
A University of Kentucky alumnus twice over, Turner is in Guadalajara, Mexico and about to complete a program that will allow him to teach English as a foreign language. When he is finished, Turner, 69, and his wife plan to move to Ecuador where they own a small sugar cane farm.
Once in Ecuador, Turner hopes to teach and to research how birds relate to culture.
Meanwhile, he is still serving as a legal consultant to the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians who are fighting to be recognized as a tribe by the U.S. government.
The anthropologist, lawyer and teacher has certainly kept busy since he left the College of Arts & Sciences in 1981.
“They’re all dimensions of what I’ve been able to do in my life so far,” Turner said. “You couldn’t put me in a box if you tried.”
Turner is