In 2018, Kay Turner appeared in a Benton County Enterprise article about senior fitness (when her name was Kay Wingfield). She was nearing her 70th birthday, training five days a week with Brian Phillips at Warsaw Fitness and entered her first competition where she bench pressed 55 pounds, squatted 100 pounds and dead lifted 145 pounds. She later entered a second competition where she deadlifted 185 pounds. She explained that she had turned to fitness in 2008 after her son passed away and she needed to find a goal that would motivate her.
“When my son died, I was living in Lee’s Summit where I had been since the age of 20,” said Turner. "I would sit in my kitchen trying to figure out how to live,”
She went on to say, “I began walking five miles a day and spending two hours a day at Extreme Fitness, (in Lee’s Summit) trying to fill up time. I found that fitness heals the heart, mind, body and soul.”
The year after the article appeared, Turner got divorced and moved to Florida where she grew up and she kept up with her Silver Sneakers program at the YMCA. Her ex-husband had stayed at their house in Benton County, but the process of aging was difficult for him, and she had made a promise to help him if needed. She returned to Benton County the week of Thanksgiving 2024 to check on him since he is 82 years old and has a form of dementia. She decided that she could not leave him and started getting their house back in order, a process that involved so much paperwork, cleaning and other aspects that she didn’t have time to go to a gym until the middle of April of this year. She is not in training at the present time but works with dumbbells and other equipment on her own. She has taken her ex-husband to the gym, and he now rides an incumbent bike and is getting stronger too. She hopes to work with Brian Phillips again sometime, is still in contact with him, but he works in Sedalia now and she might have to drive up there about twice a week when she is available to do so.
Turner is proud of how fit she remains and has a photo of herself in a bikini at age 70. She had the photo taken so if one person saw it and felt that they could accomplish something after being in despair, it was worth it. She wanted people to see that they could rise from anything and understand the path it took for her to get to that point. She said that when someone has a disability, there is a way to put one foot in front of another. She wanted to have another photo taken of her at 75, but she is 76 now and has not been able to arrange it yet. She plans to stay with the fitness course and have another photo taken at age 80.
She will be staying in Warsaw where she has friends that she has worked with in the past at Benton County Central Dispatch, and at Harry S. Truman State Park.
She says that those friends saved her life and that without people we are nothing.
Although she was raised in Florida, she moved to Lee's Summit at age 20 to be near a sister who was a stewardess. She married and remained there for 50 years before settling in the local area.
“I want to encourage people to do what they can,” said Turner. “I would have not survived if I had not set a goal for myself to be my best. I do this because my son Jason had the ability to be the best he could be taken away from him.”
She said that Warsaw has a lot of senior citizens who can benefit from fitness programs and the Silver Sneakers program is offered through select Medicare plans allowing seniors 65 or older the opportunity to join one of a program at a gym, online or other areas, free of charge, where fitness programs available. In Warsaw, Integrated Fitness offers Silver Sneakers Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Main Street Fitness also offers Silver Sneakers and members can use the facilities 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a key to get in. The Warsaw Senior Center is also able to accept the Silver Sneakers card so seniors can take some of the fitness classes such as Line Dancing, Chair One Fitness and Joint Friendly Motion.
Interested seniors can check to see if they are eligible for a Silver Sneakers program by going to https?//tools.silversneakers.com/Eligibility.
