Hamilton Hittson moved up into the park director’s job. After that happened, he calls me up. He says, “You know Jim Brown, he’s our superintendent, we need a director. But I can’t call you a director at this time, but we’re gonna call you the general curator. Would you come… Read More
I really was not, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what to do. And I would talk to people and get advice. Finally, the natural history museum director called me up. He said, “Lawrence, take that job in Fort Worth.” I said, “Well, why? Why should I do that?” He… Read More
I went over there, and it was great. Read More
And guess what?… Read More
Well, my next zoo after Dallas was pretty simple. At the Dallas Zoo, I would go to other zoos in Texas, and I would go to the Fort Worth Zoo to get animals. They were really (clicks tongue) active there. We used to put out a surplus list, AAZPA did. Read More
And how did that next zoo job come about?… Read More
Just a bit, but don’t worry about it. That’s okay. That’s fine. Thank you. You were saying. Yeah. You were at Dallas for two years. Read More
Where did you go from the Dallas Zoo as curator?… Read More
Would you mind taking your pen outta your pocket and just putting it on the side there?… Read More
Are you getting any reflection off my glasses?… Read More
Thanks. Occasionally it’ll bump the mic. Read More
How would you like to be our curator?” Well, hell, I grabbed it. I grabbed that. And so the minute I was through with my studies, I went over to the Dallas Zoo. And I’d never really worked in a zoo. I’d been in the, by then, I’d been in… Read More
I went out with each keeper, until the keeper said, “Okay, Lawrence can handle my route.” They called them routes, of course, and I would do his route for a couple of days. Then I would go do another route. And I did, spent probably the first two months doing… Read More
So you’re working at Dallas. One quick question, Mr. Curtis. Read More
And the park director said, “You want to get into zoos?… Read More
So they had a pall over the zoo, and there was a head keeper there. Read More
The Dallas Aquarium, Pierre Fontinee, director, (laughs) Lawrence Curtis, assistant curator. So I was, I had gotten a title. And I did everything there, signs, setting up exhibits, did all that. And when I got graduated, when I got my master’s degree at SMU, the park director, the park director,… Read More
They had maybe 40 zoos. There weren’t many zoos in the United States at that time. There were very few aquariums. And he put this roster out. And when Pierre Fontaine, my boss Pierre, called me at home, said, “Come, I have something to show you.” And it was this… Read More
And guess what?… Read More
Also Chris Coates, another big name in aquariums. But Roger, and we had an awful lot of correspondence. And he was really studying water snakes at the time. And we had, I guess six different species within 100 miles of Dallas. So we had these relationships. I think it was… Read More