By Michael Motes

Thousands of miles away from home and family, working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, Warren Turner eagerly watched the mails for the one thing he says helped him maintain his sanity.

The mails brought the weekly sermons of Monsignor Donald Kiernan, then Turner's pastor at Saint Jude's. They were a week late, but reading them and sharing the messages with others brought a feeling of security in the Church to Turner and other Catholics working on the Alaska Pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, otherwise known as "The Top of the World."

Turner, an electrician, had signed up for work on the Pipeline quite some time before receiving a job. The work situation in Atlanta was very bad at the time and with a wife and five children to support, the financial picture was very bleak.

From February 1976 to January of this year, Turner worked in Alaska. At first he was in Fairbanks for five months, holding what he calls a "typical, 40-hour-a-week job."

"I was able to attend Mass in Fairbanks daily," he recalls. "There was a lot of extra time so I got involved with the Lions Club there and even helped them bring a circus to town.

"But once I was sent to Prudhoe Bay, there was time for nothing but work, work, work! There is no church in the area where we worked and although groups got together for non-denominational services, I felt very far removed from the Church."

That is when Monsignor Kiernan came to the rescue. Turner contacted him during one of his visits back home to Atlanta and asked if he could help him. The good Monsignor, a long-time personal friend as well as Turner's pastor, mailed his sermon each Monday following the Sunday services. Although they were a week late, Turner shared them with other Catholics, including Edward Overcash of Lilburn, and managed to feel a part of the Church of North Georgia while working in one of the most remote areas of the world.

Turner grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Marist. After a year-and-a-half at Georgia Tech, he left school to get married. He has been an electrician for 29 years and it was in this capacity that he sought work on the Alaska Pipeline.

The hours were long and hard. Workers had to put in 12 hours a day, seven days a week for nine consecutive weeks. They were then given a couple of weeks off and Turner would return to Atlanta.

"Actually, there were about 25 members of my local Electricians' Union in Atlanta at Prudhoe Bay. So somebody was always returning home to Atlanta and they shared the local news with us. I also called home every week and kept in close contact with my family."

The first time Turner called home, he forgot that there is a five-hour time difference and he woke up his wife, who needless to say, was delighted to hear from him, but requested that he arrange his telephone calls at more conventional hours!

It was an experience never to be forgotten, and Turner says that "if the Pipeline breaks, I'm ready to go back again." Should such a thing happen, he would like to arrange for his wife and twin daughters, Patricia and Christine, students at St. Pius, to go with him. His other children are married. He has two grandchildren, Emily and Jason.

"There are great opportunities for young people in Alaska," he says. "There is plenty of work and anyone willing to work hard can find a well-paying job."

Earthquakes and blizzards are such a common occurrence in Alaska, that Turner grew accustomed to them. He especially remembers a Good Friday service he was attending in Fairbanks when an earthquake struck.

"It was right in the middle of the Liturgy and really made an impression on me," he recalls. "The strange thing about it is that the same thing had happened the year before, the priest told us."

One night Turner awoke as his bed was sliding across the room. His roommate had been thrown from his bed as the earth trembled.

"You really get used to it, however. Several times I was walking down the street and felt the ground beneath me rise up."

As we talked in 93-degree weather at the site of Turner's current job, the MARTA station on East Ponce de Leon, he recalled the coldest day he experienced. It was 118 degrees below zero and the wind was blowing 50 to 60 miles an hour.

I walked out of the door of our cabin and immediately got frostbite. The metal rings of my eyeglasses conducted the cold and my cheek was frostbitten in no time!"

Frostbite was the biggest danger on the Alaska construction job, where Turner served as a foreman in charge of a crew wiring pipes to keep heat in them to avoid freezing and breaking.

He says that the weather was often so severe that crews could only work for 15 minutes at a time. The crews rotated, as there were 10,000 people at Prudhoe Bay, some coming from as far as Ireland and Honduras for the well-paying jobs.

Now back home, Turner recalls "the experience of a lifetime" with fondness. But his nicest memory is "the Godsend" of Monsignor Kiernan.

"I might not have been able to stick it out without him," he says. "He's about the greatest man I know."