Monday Musings – 4 March

It was Saturday, March 5th, 1988, thirty-six years ago tomorrow, that Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo re-opened after a 3-year closure for renovation. I remember the date because I was the zoo director. When I arrived in 1984, the zoo was what I described in my memoir, Lessons from the Zoo, as a “grim place” with chain-link cages and water-filled pits. When I left, four years later, we had raised $20 million to rebuild the entire 24-acre zoo from the ground up. If it had been a home renovation, it would have been called a “tear down”. Along the way, we earned accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, we hosted Jane Goodall, and, when we were finished, the animals were walking on grass in natural habitats. It was well on the way to becoming the ZooTampa at Lowry Park of today.

But the zoo wasn’t my finest accomplishment in Tampa. That occurred a mile and a half from the zoo at Seminole Heights Garden Center when I married Karen in August of 1984 – 40 years ago. But that’s a story for another time.