(laughs) No, he didn’t push anything like that. He might want you to go ahead and do something like that, but you’d take your time and do it right. You know, he had a farm in St. Louis, Grant’s Farm. Yes. For many moons. Read More
Busch Gardens. Tell me that. (laughs) Just Busch Gardens, he just wanted Busch Garden. He used to do things like… He was down there on Good Friday once, and the traffic was unbearable, back and forth down Busch Boulevard. And he said, “What is all that traffic out there?” “Well,… Read More
Or was he coming to you and saying, “I wanna build Asia. How much d’ya need?” Well, no, we would offer him projects to consider, and he had the gentlemen on his staff that screened all of that stuff. Read More
Was there a project that you gave him that you thought he’d love and he hated?… Read More
I mean: would you have a project, you’d say, “I wanna bring okapis here,” “I wanna get gorillas here,” “I wanna have hoofstock,” and then, he would come back?… Read More
Now, would you go to him to ask?… Read More
Somebody give you more money than ya thought?… Read More
You have any surprises when you were raising money?… Read More
Busch was the only one that ever tried to get me to take more money. For the various projects. Yeah, he’d always wanna make sure we had enough money to take care of our special projects. Read More
Well, I think, probably, they were thinking, “Zoo people, animal people,” but they had to have somebody that could raise money, whereas you can think, “Guy (indistinct) do everything,” which makes it kinda difficult. Read More
Now, when you were at these zoos, do you feel that they wanted more a good zoo man who knew his animals or they wanted more a guy who was gonna raise money?… Read More
We wanna make sure that you have an ability to communicate with the public, the general public and the powers that be, to better our standing in the community and keep us going, keep money flowing. Read More
Well, you first know you have to know what’s your aim. Read More
What do you wanna do?… Read More
Are we gonna develop this into this, that, or whatever?… Read More
Oh yeah, we’d always let them know if there’s something special going on. You mentioned raising money and that you didn’t particularly like it. No, it’s no fun. Read More
If someone was coming to you today, young zoo person, and saying, “I would like to be a zoo director,” what would ya tell ’em?… Read More
(Robert laughs) What advice would you give ’em about the job and what it entails?… Read More
And did you ever try and use the press to promote an exhibit?… Read More
Oh, well, we had people on staff that were public relations people. Read More