"What he didn't know," Pam confides, "is that only the night before we'd had a guest from Muskegon. If he'd asked me a day earlier I'd have been equally in the dark."
This information comes with dollops of her trademark laughter, her personality's champagne bubbly.
But her life hasn't all been a barrel of laughs. Her mother died during her third form year, her father when she was in her 30s.
Another knock was learning she and Arthur couldn't have children. There's a wonderful story to come about the flip-side of that, but first let's dissect a little of the background of the Ngongotaha-raised woman born into the large Cooney clan.
In 1981 she was Western Heights High's head girl, the previous year she was introduced to overseas travel, the Rotorua West Lions Club selected her as an exchange student; Gosford, New South Wales, became 'home' for six months.
"I arrived in Sydney but I might as well have been in China, I was terrified."
Gosford High's curriculum offered mechanics. Pam signed up.
"I remember proudly telling my father I could now pull a lawn mower apart and put it together again."
Here's one in the eye to our Aussie cousins, while there Pam excelled at English.
"I couldn't have done that at home, New Zealand was way ahead of the Aussies."
Medicine was her career of first choice but her travel appetite had been whetted and holiday work at the Agrodome and Rainbow Springs compounded her enthusiasm for the visitor industry.
She joined the Government Tourist Bureau, planning to stay a year before med school, however she was hooked and remained until she became, to quote, "despondent with the Public Service".
"I went to ATA Travel and told [manager] Graham Blackmore he needed to employ me."
He did, when he left Pam replaced him, she was 21. Next venture was a half share in Travel Talk. When her business partner sold his portion to House of Travel Pam entered her present dual partnership in the multi award-winning agency - in 2001 it scooped Rotorua's Supreme Business of the Year title.
Away from work musical theatre's her passion. She's musical by inclination playing the piano, violin (she has Trinity College letters) and guitar, recently adding the ukulele to her repertoire.
It was via the theatre that she met Arthur. "I was in Lock Up Your Daughters, he was involved, I thought he looked cute."
Learning he was with the ambulance service Pam became a volunteer, Arthur was her training officer, they married in 1987.
Now comes the bit about the couple's inability to conceive. They applied to Social Welfare to adopt.
"One day this girl came into work with a folder under her arm, I thought she wanted a job, instead she said 'I want you to take my baby'. I asked when it was due, she said 'I had him two days ago'."
The Turners were among couples Social Welfare had cross-matched her with.
Pam and Arthur didn't hesitate. Crass as it may sound, the infant Jordan became their take-away baby. He was 12-days-old when his birth mother entrusted him into the Turners' care at a Hamilton Georgie Pie outlet.
"When I told a friend's son we'd got Jordan at Georgie Pie he was absolutely crestfallen saying 'all I got was a model of Simba'."
Pam will never tire of telling that gem. How did she possibly manage to prepare for a baby in such short time?
"I grabbed some money, handed it to my friend and workmate, Ann Henderson, saying 'you've got kids, you'll know what we need'."
Jordan's now 20 and contact with his birth mum continues.
When he was small the Turners bought 10 acres at Tarukenga, opened their first home stay and grew asparagus commercially. Because it was a concentrated 12-week season Arthur insisted on diversification.
"He came back from Mystery Creek Field Days saying we were going to grow hydroponic watercress. I said he was mad, Rotorua was full of people picking their own from local streams but we became big market suppliers."
The home stay business also prospered with an in-town bed and breakfast the next logical step.
"Home hosting had become our thing."
The Turners bought Kuirau Lodge on the banks of the Utuhina Stream close to Kuirau Park. However, when their rates more than doubled they called it quits.
"We'd have had to increase our bed nights by at least 85 to cover our rates, it simply didn't compute."
Both businesses have been operated around Arthur's St John shifts and in sync with Pam's business commitments.
She's sad they no longer have such personal contact with visitors, many now life-long friends, but Pam's done a fair bit of her own visiting.
"I've trekked in Nepal, rafted down the Zambezi, gone deep into Borneo, I'll give it up when I'm tired of it but I doubt I ever will tire of it."
*
PAM TURNER (NEE COONEY)
Born: Rotorua, 1964
Education: Ngongotaha Primary, Kaitao Intermediate, Western Heights and Gosford Highs (latter as exchange student)
Family: Husband Arthur, son Jordan, stepson Jamie
Interests: Family "my extended family's huge and close", music, theatre, walking, leisure cycling, travel, yachting in earlier years "unusual for a girl then", completed 2001 Marathon "when I started I couldn't run between lamp posts".
Personal Philosophy: "Live life like there's no tomorrow."
