I make rounds as often as possible. Maybe not to the same department each day, but I make sure that in a week’s time I went to every department and visit with each curator. And the appropriate keepers that were on there, went to visit ’em. Looked at the exhibits. Read More
How important you think that is?… Read More
I think it’s very important. I think an ongoing relationship with the keepers, the grounds crew, the maintenance people with the director. And the way I operated was an open door. Anybody could come to me, even the volunteers could come to me with a complaint. And very often when… Read More
How involved were you in the day-to-day activities and hands-on when you were director?… Read More
Did you make rounds?… Read More
I think early in my career, we created the concept for the cheetah survival center. We had a pair of cheetahs in the old lion house that never bred. There’s been some success on very few zoos, but some private breeding ranches where they had cheetahs in large outdoor enclosures… Read More
And I said, “We have this idea that we’d like to take.” We had two pair of cheetah. Pair of cheetahs at the lion house and a pair of cheetahs at the small mammal house. We thought we’d like to move ’em out to where the buffalo are, get rid… Read More
Then we retrofitted the bison yard, made a cheetah survival center out of it. And then we bought two cheetahs from Amanda Blake, Miss Kitty from “Gunsmoke”. She and her husband had a ranch near Phoenix, Arizona and they were successful in breeding cheetahs. And we bought two female cheetahs,… Read More
So ultimately, you had good relation or you tried to make sure relations with the press. We actually had very good relations with the press. Read More
In the many exhibits that you created while you were director, was there one that you were the most proud of?… Read More
I’m sure they’re all great. Read More
But was there one that really?… Read More
We used to have periodic behind-the-scenes tours. We invite the TV, the radio and TV announcers. We invited newspaper reporters, even those the ones that were friendly and even the ones that were unfriendly. We invite ’em to the zoo, give ’em behind-the-scenes tour, make sure they had a great… Read More
As director, did you see the value of using the press?… Read More
Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. We also circulated press releases frequently about new arrivals. They loved to have pictures of baby animals for the front page of the Post-Dispatch or for TV program. So we would call them when we had somethin’ special. They were glad to have it. But sometimes they’d… Read More
Well first of all, we always told the truth. We didn’t hide the information because we wanted to have a friendly relationship with the media and we wanted to have a friendly relationship with the public. So things that were good or bad, we always put the word out in… Read More
How did you nurture that relationship with the press?… Read More
When things at the zoo happened that were bad or good, how did you get the story out?… Read More
Especially if a prized animal, the community loved that died or you had to put it to sleep or whatever the circumstances. Read More
What was your philosophy about getting that story out?… Read More