Thelma Turner

Turner was born Thelma Mary Trask on 31 May 1929, and grew up in Hāwera and then Palmerston North.[1][2] She was educated at Palmerston North Technical College, where she was girls' joint athletics champion in 1944.[2][3]

Trask was a member of the Manawatu provincial netball team from 1944, playing in the forward third of the court.[1][4] She was also a Manawatu basketball representative from 1944.[5]

At the 1946 national netball championships in Tauranga, Manawatu shared the national title with Auckland, each winning six of their seven matches, with Trask reported as giving a "bright scoring display". At the conclusion of the tournament, Trask was included in the North Island team that defeated the South Island 22–19 in the interisland match.[6]

In 1948, Trask was selected in the New Zealand national team for the second Test against the touring Australian team in New Plymouth. The Australian team was victorious, winning 44–13.[2][7] The match was the only occasion on which Trask represented New Zealand, because the New Zealand side for the three-Test series was selected on a regional basis, and New Zealand did not play another international game until 1960.[2] With a height of 1.56 metres (5 ft 1 in), Trask is one of the shortest women ever to play for the Silver Ferns.[2]

Trask retired as from playing netball and basketball in 1956.[2]

In 1956, Trask married Bruce Turner, a New Zealand field hockey player at the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games, and Central Districts cricket representative. The couple went on to have three children.[2] Bruce Turner died in 2010.[8]

In 2019, Thelma Turner appeared at a netball Test match between New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago in Palmerston North, tossing the coin before the start of the game.[2]