And I said, “We’re so fortunate because we’ve not had a lot of political interference in the zoo.” And I’m responsible, I’m the zoo director. I would like to have the professional freedom to be the zoo director. If I’m not doing the job you think I should be doing,… Read More
So I tried to paint a picture that staying out of politics, but quite honestly, me as a city employee at my level, I could not really influence the city commission or the park commissioner or even some of the bureaucrats at City Hall. The saving grace during my tenure… Read More
How did politics of the city, or the state even, affect the workings of the zoo?… Read More
Politics, oh, boy, politics. I’m not a politician and politics is, (exhales) it’s with every zoo in one way or another, because there’s a governmental, generally there’s a governmental entity in some way associated with the zoo. In Topeka, the state was not involved. We didn’t get any money from… Read More
The world famous Topeka Zoo, we had no structured marketing campaign. I personally have no formal training in marketing whatsoever, but once again, it’s the animals. I mean, we had 450 fascinating personalities in the zoo, and to let people know about them, what was an important thing and how… Read More
They still are to this day, many giraffes born here. Not like Cheyenne mountain, which has, I guess, the world record, and we weren’t trying to duplicate that at all. We just wanted a successful breeding program for our giraffes. One of our young giraffes, oh, we don’t know how… Read More
And I had to call the news media and explain that. And we did, and the reporter was very receptive. Didn’t gloss over, wrote it up, I thought fairly, but it’s a tragic accident, and it was. And rather than being criticized, I got mostly condolences. And even when the… Read More
You can’t hide these things, because you can’t hide anything in a zoo. It’s gonna get out sooner or later. You need to be the first ones to tell them what’s the factual situation before all kinds of rumors and stories get started, and before they think you’re trying to… Read More
Zoo school, I loved our zoo school. And the concept was, I almost wish that we had a better word than school, but because everybody could relate to what the word school was, this was back in the 60s and 70s, and into the 80s, then we used school, and… Read More
And then from that evolved the zoo explorer post. So when the kids got out of the zoo school, then they became zoo explorers and were able to do more, involved in more mature projects around the zoo. And then some of them became keepers and went on to other… Read More
What were some of the strengths of the public, the marketing strengths of the world famous Topeka Zoo?… Read More
A lot of people started out there that went on to do, the current editor of National Geographic Magazine started as a photo journalist here in Topeka, the Capital Journal. And they had great pictures and they’d run great stories, but you have to be honest, upfront and candid with… Read More
And then after I left the zoo and started doing safaris, I had the same host and we continued with a program called “Gary on Safari.” So I might’ve beaten Roger’s record, but not totally the zoo’s. And Friends of the Zoo memberships and giving programs, giving talks everywhere, just… Read More
Tell me about the concept of zoo school and what it was. Read More
And is that in part how you captured the kids’ attention?… Read More
Pretty soon he just dropped me, ran around the yard, squeaking and urinating, Paul dragged me out. Didn’t have any broken bones. Boy, was I beat up and bruised and just scabbed everywhere. So I did a survey on tapirs in zoos. I was astounded at how many injuries had… Read More
How did you have people come to the zoo?… Read More
Topeka is a small community and I would classify it as a small zoo, so how did we get people to come to this zoo?… Read More
Word of mouth as much as anything. We didn’t do one penny of paid advertising in any way. But so many community organizations and businesses were willing to help promote the zoo. It was almost a prestige thing to be able to be associated with the zoo. So they did… Read More
And long before all these animatronic animals, what did they use?… Read More