He had had a zoo show at Cincinnati Zoo patterned after the old “Zoo Parade” where they would bring animals from the zoo to the studio and then talk about each animal with a theme, birds or mammals or reptiles. So when he came to St. Louis, the producer from… Read More
Phil Ogilvie?… Read More
Phil Ogilvie offered Moody Lentz a job and Moody suggested that Jerry take that job. So Jerry went to Oklahoma City as assistant director. And he wanted to get out from under his dad’s wing. He really wanted to spread his own wings and do something on his own. So… Read More
Then of course Jerry went from Oklahoma City to Busch Gardens in Houston, Texas when they opened up a new zoo in Houston, Texas. That didn’t last very long. And when it closed up, he was transferred to Tampa and ultimately became director at Tampa. Meanwhile, Lawrence Curtis arrived at… Read More
I have to look at my biography. I don’t remember what year. But probably in the late ’60s, ’68 maybe. Then I became general curator, deputy director. I was deputy director for some time. So when you were made assistant general curator, Marlin was still there. Yes, Marlin was still… Read More
I mean Moody actually shared his responsibility with me willingly and helped groom me. He helped me to become the best that I could be. There was never any jealousy of any part on his side. Now there are these other assistant curators who are moving up. You mentioned Jerry… Read More
So he took the job at Oklahoma City. It was the director that preceded Lawrence Curtis. Read More
I also found out that we could negotiate our produce by wheeling and dealing with the produce suppliers. We’d find someone give us a more competitive price, so we start buying bananas in big quantity and oranges in big quantity. I was able to save a lotta money in commissary. Read More
At that time, the buying and selling of animals was a cocktail party event. It was more fun than it was science. And during the cocktail party, you take turns getting up at a microphone and reading off your surplus list. And the other zoo directors of the audience would… Read More
What year?… Read More
Well during my role as curator, the assistant director Henry Sanders got sick. He spent some time in the hospital. He bought all the food for the animals, the fish and ran the commissary. When he was out sick, Moody had to take it over and Moody wasn’t really happy… Read More
Would you mind helpin’ me with the commissary?… Read More
Would you mind helping me with the fish?” So I started buying fish. At that time, there was a big seafood company in St. Louis. We were buying our frozen fish every week. I forgotten. 10,000-pound lots of feed. We had a walrus, sea lions, all the penguins. Well I… Read More
We have bones, skulls, furs, all kinds of things that a teacher can come like a library and take out one of these plastic boxes. A mammal box, bird box, reptile box they can take to their school, use it in the classroom and then bring it back. So that… Read More
How did that come about?… Read More
Was Marlin still director and what was your title?… Read More
I’ve watched our library grow and develop at our zoo. It was a resource for me as I developed. I went to it often. We established a library in our education department. We made it available for staff at any time, but we also made it available to teachers. It… Read More
When I worked as a keeper at the reptile house, we were also responsible for keeping the hospital clean. We didn’t have a full-time veterinarian. He only came one day a week, four hours a day. Four hours in that one day. Any animal died, we had to go pick… Read More
Let me see it. Lemme see that,” and he would diagnose it. Write down his autopsy form and he say, “Okay, throw that away.” Well we’d cut off the head and save the skull. Sometimes if it was a giraffe, we’d saved the neck bone. We’d save the femur from… Read More
And that picture by the way is used in St. Louis publications quite often. I went out, took pictures around the zoo and I brought ’em back and he critiqued them. He told me which ones were good, which ones were bad composition. I didn’t have the light in the… Read More