And the advice basically was, you know, look, boy, we want you to be successful. And whatever you do balance the damn budget. If you have balanced the budget, the board’s probably going to let you do anything you want because they’d never had a balanced budget. The board members… Read More
And what were your responsibilities as assistant director?… Read More
Everything. Everything because we had, we had no, when, when I first got there, you know, Saul Kitchener who, you know, ultimately came up and worked in your shop, was primate curator, but then Saul moved on and, and went to Lincoln Park. And so we had, as I said,… Read More
And as I said, early on, you know, the board president who hired me, Ben Morris, who was an old, rough and gruff profane ex Marine, but probably one of the, one of the best guys I’ve ever known, you know, kind of, they took me aside and said, we’re… Read More
Well, it was brand new. I mean, it had, Riverview Park had had a zoo since 1895. The park had been gazetted in 1894 and they’d had a zoo since 1895. But basically when I got there, you know, the red barn was built. The gorilla house, orang house were… Read More
So we had, you know, over a period of time, we developed a really incredible collection of hoofstock. And, you know, we built, we built plywood barns and, and bought Cottonwood planks from a saw mill, you know, over 30 miles away and built corrals and, and fences and all… Read More
And even though there was a fair amount of bureaucracy in the fact that the board met every month. And because they’d never had that, when I became director and they’d never had a balanced budget. Ever. Had to go to the bank at the end of every year to… Read More
Warren Thomas hired me. And I started in December of 1966. Read More
And he hired you as a veterinarian?… Read More
As a veterinarian. And then kind of following us somewhat pattern, I guess, going someplace wasn’t good for people because within about six months, I was also veterinarian assistant director. And within a little, over three years, I was director. Read More
What kind of zoo did you find when you first got there?… Read More
I mean the zoo itself was fun. It was great because I got to do just about everything at one time or another, and it was a great training ground, but the politics, the politics were bad in the city of Columbus. And that’s basically why I, and because Omaha,… Read More
I mean Omaha. Yeah, when we came to Omaha, the zoo had 10 employees, including me, a budget of $100,000. Three years later, when I became acting director in March of 1970, we were up to 14 employees and, and a budget of $350,000 a year. Read More
When did you start at Omaha Zoo?… Read More
Who hired you?… Read More
And how did you get to the Omaha Zoo?… Read More
Well, it was fairly obvious that Columbus wasn’t going to, because it was directly under the mayor. It was directly under the mayor. It was a very political, and frankly, in those days, a reasonably corrupt operation, as far as the city. The city was kind of a corrupt operation… Read More
And it was extremely political. I mean, it was extremely political. And I, as I said, it developed a huge dislike for politics and politicians, even though they couldn’t, they couldn’t really lay a hand on me, but they laid a hand on everybody else in the zoo. They would… Read More
The first dart gun was for my own use. And then Mitch Bush came along and said, well, wait a minute. So that, you know, the first, you know, the, the first dart gun that actually went out the door and sold to anybody was actually to the National Zoo. Read More
When did you decide that you wanted to leave Columbus?… Read More