Education is an awareness of how magnificent animals are. It’s an appreciation of animals. It’s a sense of, as I said at one point, a sense of stewardship, about wildlife and wild places, and the Earth, but it’s important as far as the image of the zoo, because, and first… Read More
I don’t know if they do it today or not, but when I was at the zoo, we had a magazine called Zoo Magazine. It was every other month. Not only would it go to the members, but we made arrangements for, we printed enough copies for a copy to… Read More
They’ve got cameras at the Black Bear Exhibit that monitor the black bear behavior and transmits this to classrooms in schools. Other zoos around the country are far advanced, much more advanced in doing that than Topeka is at this point. But Topeka, you can do a lot of that. Read More
You need somebody, but you don’t need me. But that’s the way they would think. Now let me tell you what has happened. (chuckles) From, oh, we need you back at the zoo, to the new man’s in place now, Brendan Wiley. He’s young, he’s enthusiastic, he’s passionate, he’s got… Read More
I didn’t know you were still alive. (Gary laughing) So you see, they didn’t need me. They needed somebody. And Brendan apparently is the guy. I hope he is. And the first day he was in town to be announced as the director, he was busy as hell, the media… Read More
He’s called me more than all the rest of ’em put together. (Gary chuckles) But I still don’t have any direct pipeline to the zoo. Everybody thinks I should or would, but no, I shouldn’t. No, I’m history, and that’s the way it should be. Talked about education. We’ve talked… Read More
Do you think that’s important in boosting the image of the zoo, especially in the face of people who are anti-zoo?… Read More
(Gary laughing) And when things would get bad, sometimes they’d say, oh, we need you back at the zoo. They didn’t need me back at the zoo. They needed the zoo to be better, but that was the quick fix, they thought. And then when they lost accreditation that things… Read More
And I would always say to these folks, I would say now, remember, back in the late 80s, when the Kansas City Royals won the World Series?… Read More
Oh yeah, I remember that. Well, asking me to go back to the zoo and make a quick fix is like saying to the manager of the Royals in the late 80s, when they won the World Series, and the Royals are now in last place, as usual, well, go… Read More
I didn’t have to put up with politics and bureaucracy, and (chuckles) so on, in doing that. But anyway, so I vowed to never look over my shoulder. Now because I was here for 26 years, and because this is a smaller community, and because the position of the director… Read More
This was home. So I didn’t wanna move out, but I was out of town and out of the country much of the time in Africa. But I did not have a direct line to the zoo as far as any information or what was going on with activities or… Read More
I didn’t get a call from my successors saying, what do you think of this or we need help, or can you do this?… Read More
I would go to the grocery store, the post office, or the library and people, I mean, 10, 15 years later, people would say, oh, hi Gary, how are things at the zoo?… Read More
So it’s a trade off, I guess. (chuckles) You mentioned that some just go through highs and lows in their governance. And Topeka Zoo temporarily lost its accreditation. Read More
Why do you think that that type of thing came about?… Read More
Why did Topeka Zoo lose its accreditation?… Read More
Zoos do go through highs and lows. That’s a interesting situation. Now when I retired on December 31st, 1989, I made a vow never to look over anyone’s shoulder, any of my successors’ shoulder. I did say if I can be of help at any time, let me know. But… Read More
Number one, be upfront, be candid, be honest. Don’t try to pull any punches. Number two, no surprises. I mean, if we had an animal death, if it was 09:30 at night, and we discovered that the polar bear, the old polar bear that we knew it was in the… Read More
I want the park commissioner, or in my case, that was the elected official I had to deal with, park commissioner to be supportive of the zoo and vote favorably for the zoo and do things for the zoo. But at the same time, I didn’t want him to call… Read More