Lease On Life May Come With New Zoo Manager First Job For Former Fund-Raiser Is To Get Lease Extended

Optimistic that new leadership will reverse fortunes at Walk in the Wild, board members have hired the zoo’s fourth manager in three years.

Frances Drake won’t last any longer than her predecessors if the zoo’s landlord sticks to its plan. Inland Empire Paper Co., which since 1972 has given the zoo free use of the 65-acre site, announced last fall that the lease won’t be renewed in July.

“At this point, there has been no change in the decision,” Wayne Andresen, general manager of the paper company, said Friday.

Convincing Inland to extend the lease will be one of Drake’s top priorities, board members say.

“As soon as we’ve got a new manager, we’ll probably be going again to see him (Andresen),” board president Joan Versteeg said this week, before Drake’s appointment was announced.

Drake, who could not be reached for comment, comes to the zoo from Idaho Public Television, where she was Coeur d’Alene development director for about a year.

“She was very good,” said station manager Russ Spain. “Our membership grew during the time that she was here.”

Previously, she was executive director of the Long Beach Peninsula Visitor and Convention Bureau in Western Washington, according to a statement from the zoo.

Drake, who has no experience in zoo management, was hired for her skills as a fund-raiser.

The zoo started the winter $130,000 in debt. That has been reduced to about $65,000, thanks to recent gifts of $50,000 and $45,000 and the willingness of some creditors to forgive debts, said Geneva Custer, the zoo’s accountant and acting manager since October.

A membership drive in December netted the zoo nearly $5,000, Custer said, but attendance remains low. A Christmas light display “probably came close to breaking even,” she said.

Drake’s most recent predecessor was Chuck Lund, who led a fundraising drive with a $1.1 million goal. Lund was hired in August and quit in October, when it became apparent the drive would fail.

Board members had said they’d close the zoo if the drive failed, but backed away from that ultimatum in October.

Lund’s most recent predecessors are Hugh Imhof (March-August 1994), Jim Bousquet (1992-February 1994) and Jack Hebner (1989-1992.) Judith Gilmore was interim director between Hebner and Bousquet.