Well, the paid professional staff was very important, but in a different context, but just as important, were the volunteers. I mean the docents and our zoo school teachers, my gosh, without them, our zoo never would have, would never have reached into the community on a personal level and… Read More
They loved going to these classes, learning about the animals and about zoos in general and our zoo and history of our zoo. And so that just kinda grew and it became almost a prestige thing to be a zoo docent, which was great. But then they did so many… Read More
But that was terribly important for this zoo in this community. I think it was one of the key things that helped really make the zoo what it was within the community. So I’m always grateful. I’ve always be grateful to those folks. And today, yet today, I’ll be someplace,… Read More
How would the staff describe me?… Read More
Well, the way I would describe myself as director is, I don’t like, and I’m somewhat inefficient at budgetary things, finances, fundraising, it’s not my favorite thing. It has to be done. I can do that. I’m better at that. The drudgery of zoo biz, I don’t like that, and… Read More
And I was always proud of that fact, that the training in Topeka was accepted by other zoos as being professional and helping making them qualified. But whenever they would be in the area or come back or see me at a conference, it was always, hey, I really loved… Read More
You talked about development of the volunteer staff, how did the docents develop?… Read More
And I didn’t want to interfere anymore, and I mean, they need to do it. And we’re a team and everybody knew what we needed to do as a team. But the key was they were all zoo people and they were all animal people and they loved it. Now… Read More
And the staff expanded and it’s fun to see those pictures over the years. The staff has been so terribly important. A good staff is critical. Read More
How would you describe yourself as director and how would your staff describe you?… Read More
(laughs) Oh, gosh. Read More
All of these things are very important. That’s why a master plan needs to be updated. But it would, the first one was Frank Thompson and myself. The next one was a lot of zoo input from the staff, ’cause we were developing a really super staff then, and I… Read More
What was your relationship with your staff, the curators, and how did you start looking at their development, their training, their upgrading?… Read More
One of the great things I had when I was director at Topeka was a staff. And the staff was superb, because they did so much. It was kind of one of these, they did most of the work, and I got all the credit. I always felt bad about… Read More
He went on to be curator of reptiles at Atlanta, but he started here, and I said, you know what, I mean, I knew he was a reptile guy, ’cause he was in Fort Worth when I knew him. We don’t have many reptiles here, but we do have a… Read More
And it’s all that, it’s all these things. So that’s, and it’s financing. Read More
And it’s, how’s the community changing?… Read More
How’s the political structure changing. Read More
How’s the zoo gonna be managed in the future?… Read More
And how do you haul the waste out?… Read More