This was back in the seventies when everything was wild caught back in the seventies. Nasty, wild. Caught with big O teeth on him. And he would say, clean that out. He said, I’ve never handled that. I’m like that, figure it out. I said, okay, I’ll figure it out. Read More
He couldn’t. And I said, does you know any other volunteer work?… Read More
He says, oh yeah, you should go out and help Charlie out in the goat area right now. Well, he knew that Charlie had, pardon me, a deceased goat in one of the barns out there that he had a haul out of the barn. And he was sticking me… Read More
My mom would take me to the zoo. I’d have them let me into the basement. I’d take, I changed the water and clean it all, scrub it all out and everything. And just kept doing that. He could not dissuade me from volunteering at the zoo. Okay. Read More
So picture the old ancient WPA zoo building Lion house stone, the cages upstairs, you know, the cage with the chimpanzee in the corner and the cage. That’s, you know, eight by eight by eight. Okay. And the concrete steps that go down past the, the chimp cage and the… Read More
Or what, what started you to say, I wanna work at a zoo?… Read More
They didn’t no volunteer program. I was annoying. I was annoying to him. He didn’t wanna put up with me in any way, shape or form. And then the Northern Indiana Herpetological Society, the guys, we convinced them to let us put a display in the window of the Lion… Read More
Even if it was, as you started at Potawatomi as a volunteer in 1972, I knew in sixth grade I wanted to be a zoo guy. I knew in because of all the books I was reading and, and going to zoos and, you know, my folks would take me… Read More
And did you have any aspirations about being very high up on the food chain?… Read More
When, when did you really decide you wanted to work at a zoo?… Read More
Seuss fan, you know, Tracy and I have four Lorax prints hanging in our bedroom. Okay. Because of the Lorax. Jim Henson with the Muppets was always an inspiration. Okay. So, and Gerald Durrell, you know, with the Jersey Wildlife Reservation Trust. So I just read a lot and got… Read More
And so, you know, you know, my parents, again, I, they were very, very supportive of me and really wanted me to pursue things that I, that I wanted to do. Who else was influential? It’s a smart question. You know, like I said, my predecessor at South South Bend,… Read More
Did in college, did any other teacher have an effect on your life? And if so, how?… Read More
Mr. Smith was my high school biology teacher. Okay. And he just, he really liked me, even though I was one of his worst students. Again, I microbiology just, you know, it, it just D-N-A-R-N-A and you know, it’s just, it never clicked in my little brain. Things that I… Read More
Okay. And so I said, it’s gonna take me longer than I’d hoped for. So it took me four years to get an associate degree in business administration. I’ve never been a scientist, never, never go to a, biology is very microbiology. It was very, very hard for me. I… Read More
And so that’s why I’ve got a, a degree in public and environmental affairs, not sociology, not biology, but basically management with the, with a minor in sociology and accounting. Now, you mentioned that one teacher, Mr. Smith, has an influence on your life. Read More
I went to any, the Indiana University campus at South Bend, that was literally across the street from the Potawatomi Zoo. Powan Zoo is in a park called Potawatomi Park Mis Walk Avenue. And there was Indiana University, literally across the street. So I could actually go from cage to… Read More
Concession. I landed a part-time zookeeper job when I was 18 after I finished high school. But in my first year in college, I went to college full-time and just worked on weekends at the zoo. Okay. I worked two 12 hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays when I went… Read More
Obviously, grammar school, high school, but where did you go to school for your higher education?… Read More
So yeah. Just all kinds of zoos. So tell me about your schooling. Read More