Interview 1738 – Caption Index: 56
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
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
And then, and I went to University of Missouri for two semesters and flunked out. And then back back to Kansas City Zoo. And then I went to Fort Worth in December of 1962. It was a fascinating time because the zoo had a lot of stars. Lawrence Curtis himself,… Read More
Anyway, and then they had animals stars. They had an aardvark which made Life Magazine. Had of pangolin, which made Life Magazine. Had pink porpoises, which Emily Hahn came and swam with. It’s in her book “Animal Gardens,” things like that. So that was a lot of fun. So they… Read More
And, boy, he made a ton of money selling peanuts in the shell, but what a mess. On Monday morning, you were almost ankle deep walking through peanut shells, ’cause people would eat ’em too. So we’d have to get out the oversized firehoses, we’d come in early, come in… Read More
My favorite day to go to the zoo was Monday, because that was the lowest attendance day. And the place for sparkling. It’s a lot of fun. Read More
What your question was, what are his strengths and weaknesses?… Read More
He was a great guy. He and Mrs. Cully, there was a little office, a cubbyhole office in the main zoo building, but he didn’t use that. And I don’t blame him. But this is in the days when a lot of zoo directors had a residence on the grounds… Read More
And Mrs. Cully would type it out. They had one daughter, Kathy and it was not a question of me being a adopted son type thing. He wasn’t that kind of individual. But I think it was a question of him recognizing somebody who did wanna make a career out… Read More
Probably the most important thing was letting me work with all these different animals. His strengths were, he knew he loved the animals, and he knew that the zoo revolved around the animals, and he knew it was for the public. And he wanted that zoo to a good for… Read More
So I learned that a clean zoo is a good zoo, so to speak. And the zoo was free. There was no perimeter fence. And on Sundays, it was a 12-hour day. You start at 8:00 am and we keep the zoo open till 8:00 pm, because of the long… Read More
You gonna be a zoo director someday?” (chuckles) And I hadn’t even thought about that quite honestly. So I didn’t really learn much from them. But Benny Henry, yes, he was a wonderful guy. I learned a lot from him. But Mr. Cully called me in the office one day… Read More
But I know George Vierheller at St. Louis, and they have a big reptile collection there. And I could probably get you on there. Or if you wanna be a general zoo man, then I’ll let you work with every species we have in all areas of the zoo. Not… Read More