Well I believe in it a lot because, again, the people make all the difference. You can read the newsletter. We tried, we would pay for, if budgets allowed, we would pay for their memberships so that they were trying to get more involved in things. We encouraged the keepers… Read More
The problem, again, was when you got a small zoo you can only let so many people go or who’s gonna run the zoo?… Read More
Was the zoo accredited with the AZA when you became director?… Read More
It was just accredited. I was curator at the time. So. I think that was ’81, 1981. So that was the process, you know, of going through that whole – an accreditation process is pretty intense. And worrisome and, you know, you want to pull your hair out, but it… Read More
And you mentioned you went to conferences. Read More
Well you had limited, so, but I’m happy to fit that. So Paul Chaffee asked me to be on the membership committee. So that’s where I started was membership committee and that’s probably the one I was on the longest. But it was also good because you learn about the… Read More
In addition, what else?… Read More
I was on the ethics board. At one time. The Conservation Education Committee. And then I chaired that one year. And then eventually I was asked to be on the board. Meanwhile then they also ask you to do, on these accreditation inspections, to go out as a representative from… Read More
Well I was allowed to go to some of the conferences. It started, the lower I was, I would go to the regional conferences they had back then. And then right before I think Chuck knew he was leaving, I was allowed to go to my first national conference. And… Read More
And we want somebody from a small zoo. Read More
You know?… Read More
And rather than just being one of several siblings in this little family, we wanted to stand out a little bit better. So we developed a zoological society. With the hope that someday they would be taking on more and more funding of not only the capital projects, but maybe… Read More
Can you speak to your involvement with AZA on a national level?… Read More
Carlotta Bielfeldt was involved in that. And so we asked them if they would be co-chairs of a fundraising job. And then also put together a zoological board. Made up of some of the big corporations in town. As well as we also brought in people that were on the… Read More
How did that get started?… Read More
Well we had talked earlier, the Friends of Glen Oak Zoo that was formed were doing small projects. A lot of hands-on and provided a lot of volunteers. That type of thing where they would help with the Zoo Day event where we’d have something fun. It was like a… Read More
‘Cause kids like to get dirty. And different food activities and whatever. And then we would have a Zoo Run run that was started with our running group in town, The Striders. And they would do a 5K run. And we finally grew that one, so they were running through,… Read More
And you paid to do so much and then you’d get tickets and you could use those tickets for doing the Jello jump, you know?… Read More
What was your relationship at the time of being a zoo director with the Zoo Society?… Read More
Did it change over the years?… Read More