And when I had a chance to go to Fort Worth, Lawrence Curtis was director then, and it was a supervisory position, which today would be curatorial level. And Mr. Cully said, “That’s a totally different zoo, the way it operates, so I’d encourage you to go. I hate to… Read More
And then, and I went to University of Missouri for two semesters and flunked out. And then back back to Kansas City Zoo. And then I went to Fort Worth in December of 1962. It was a fascinating time because the zoo had a lot of stars. Lawrence Curtis himself,… Read More
Anyway, and then they had animals stars. They had an aardvark which made Life Magazine. Had of pangolin, which made Life Magazine. Had pink porpoises, which Emily Hahn came and swam with. It’s in her book “Animal Gardens,” things like that. So that was a lot of fun. So they… Read More
And, boy, he made a ton of money selling peanuts in the shell, but what a mess. On Monday morning, you were almost ankle deep walking through peanut shells, ’cause people would eat ’em too. So we’d have to get out the oversized firehoses, we’d come in early, come in… Read More
My favorite day to go to the zoo was Monday, because that was the lowest attendance day. And the place for sparkling. It’s a lot of fun. Read More
What your question was, what are his strengths and weaknesses?… Read More
He was a great guy. He and Mrs. Cully, there was a little office, a cubbyhole office in the main zoo building, but he didn’t use that. And I don’t blame him. But this is in the days when a lot of zoo directors had a residence on the grounds… Read More
And Mrs. Cully would type it out. They had one daughter, Kathy and it was not a question of me being a adopted son type thing. He wasn’t that kind of individual. But I think it was a question of him recognizing somebody who did wanna make a career out… Read More
Probably the most important thing was letting me work with all these different animals. His strengths were, he knew he loved the animals, and he knew that the zoo revolved around the animals, and he knew it was for the public. And he wanted that zoo to a good for… Read More
So I learned that a clean zoo is a good zoo, so to speak. And the zoo was free. There was no perimeter fence. And on Sundays, it was a 12-hour day. You start at 8:00 am and we keep the zoo open till 8:00 pm, because of the long… Read More
You gonna be a zoo director someday?” (chuckles) And I hadn’t even thought about that quite honestly. So I didn’t really learn much from them. But Benny Henry, yes, he was a wonderful guy. I learned a lot from him. But Mr. Cully called me in the office one day… Read More
But I know George Vierheller at St. Louis, and they have a big reptile collection there. And I could probably get you on there. Or if you wanna be a general zoo man, then I’ll let you work with every species we have in all areas of the zoo. Not… Read More
Well, What were, so it sounds like you had a good relationship with him. Read More
What other things did you learn from him and what were his strengths and his weakness?… Read More
(chuckles) What a marvelous question. There, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but there was no curatorial staff. Mr. Cully was a knowledgeable experienced zoo man, an animal man, and then became an administrator and a construction man and development man, everything you need to be to be a zoo… Read More
And he was, we didn’t use the term nerd in those days, but if we had, he would have been the nerd. But he was a very positive, pleasant guy. And I learned a lot from him too. But then he went off to other zoos. So knowing there was… Read More
It was very disheartening. And it had a very small zoo library. Read More
And during my lunch hour, I’d always be reading books up there, which they scoffed at, “Huh, who’s this kid reading all these books?… Read More
Did you interact with the curatorial staff?… Read More
Did people stay on in their different areas?… Read More