(Gary chuckles) But the first day I was on the job, I had a little old beat up desk. I’m in the commissary smelling of fish throwing out, and all the cleaning fluids and all this stuff. And the phone rings. And there was a little thing in the paper,… Read More
Can you come and get him?” Oh, okay. What’s your address?… Read More
And whoever checked it out, it wasn’t a Prairie dog. It turns out, well, then the phone rang again, another call, I mean, all day long, the zoo had gone out and taken a chainlink fence, and put it into the ground that deep and put a guard rail around… Read More
(Gary laughs) Were any of the previous directors you worked for, did they ever give you any advice when you now took this new position?… Read More
It was a feeling of because, Kansas City, there was no education department, but every time the zoo got a request for a talk, Mr. Cully said, can you go give a talk at this group or whatever?… Read More
And I was giving talks all the time to scout troops just on my own. But it was a feeling of being in a position to, and having a facility, needed a lot of work, oh my gosh. and having these wonderful, to help other people understand animals better. And… Read More
They didn’t have much scientific basis in what they did. They would, we had one beat-up pickup truck. And so the foreman said, “Well, today, we have a special mix for our hoofstock, a feed mix. So I’ll go get that. So he’d be gone all day. So one time… Read More
Bring it back, well, we didn’t have the pick up truck all day long. I said, “I tell you what, let’s get some Purina Omolene.” (Gary chuckles) What is that? (chuckles) And they’d go around to one of these places, and they go around to the grocery stores till the… Read More
I can’t help but think that Mr. Hale might’ve said, “Well, why don’t you get that young fellow who was in Kansas City?… Read More
He’s now in Fort worth or something.” But I don’t really know, I mean. Read More
When you accepted the position, did you have doubts about being named director at such an early age?… Read More
I probably wasn’t smart enough to have doubts. I was so excited. It was such a wonderful opportunity. It wasn’t that I was gonna be the boss. It wasn’t that, it was, I’m not sure how to explain it. Read More
And I learned a lot on the job. And started on October 1st, 1963. Read More
Why do you think they considered someone so young as yourself?… Read More
The previous park commissioner, who was out of office when I came, but was in office for many years, his name was Preston Hale and he did a lot to build the zoo up at the time. It was one of these park department zoos that sometimes it’s run by… Read More
They were the opposite of Kansas City. Not much on hoofstock, more limited on carnivores, better on great apes maybe, but they were just building the then new herpetarium. And my first task was to help the rush to open the new exhibit. Every single goes through that, was to… Read More
And then maybe when I was 30 or 35, I would be in a position to accept or think about curatorial level spot, and then maybe 5 or 10 years there. So in my 40s, I might be experienced enough, wise enough to be a director. So I started as… Read More
And the Humane Society was trying to close the zoo. People in Topeka, if they’d say, after church on Sunday, let’s go to the zoo, that wasn’t the zoo in Gage Park. That was a zoo in Kansas City. Let’s get in the car and drive to Kansas City. That’s… Read More
Weaknesses, I don’t know that I could cite any. He was active nationally in the old ACPA and served as president, 1962, I believe, something like that. When the old AIPE conference was in Kansas City. And that was one of the things I got to show visiting zoo dignitaries… Read More
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