Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Riverbanks Zoo thrives 28 years under director THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Twenty-eight years ago, Riverbanks Zoo was a mess. The zoo’s commission had just fired the facility’s director over rising expenses and a promised petting zoo and sheep barn that hadn’t been built. • So the commission turned to then 26-year-old Satch Krantz to " run the zoo, which had been open for just two years. “I think they just closed their eyes, crossed their fingers and said, ’How can it get any worse? If he screws up, we’ll just get rid of him and get somebody else,’” Krantz said. After nearly three decades, many zoo supporters think they couldn’t have made a better choice. Not only does annual zoo atten dance hover at about a million — making it one of the top tourist at tractions statewide — but it also has been voted the top travel at traction of the year three times by the Southeast Tourism Society. When Krantz started, the zoo had 600 animals and 200 members; now the zoo has 2,000 animals and 36,000 memberships. Just in the past five years, the zoo has brought in koalas and gorillas, re placed an elephant and opened the Aquarium Reptile Complex. Born Palmer E. Krantz III, in Columbia, his mother soon nick named her son “Satchie.” Even his sons and their friends are like ly to call him Satch. After briefly entertaining the idea of becoming a veterinarian, Krantz majored in zoology at Clemson University. When he heard that Riverbanks Zoo was opening in his hometown, he got a job. He spent most of his ear ly days helping build the facility. But it wasn’t long before the commission asked Krantz to run the zoo. “We were all so green,” said Mary Healy, who started her zoo career at Riverbanks and now is di rector of the Sacramento Zoo in California. “But Satch was incred ible. He really rose to the occasion.” Krantz cut expenses by doing things like replacing the fresh mangos fed to the saki monkeys with less expensive feed, knowing that if the animals got sick or died, he would be responsible. “Fortunately, I was right. And even as late as 2000, we were spend ing less on the animals’ diet than we were in 1975,” Krantz said. On a typical day, Krantz arrives at the zoo about 20 minutes before the rest of the administrative staff, answers e-mails and takes his dai ly walk around the site. During a recent 15-minute trip, he picks up a paper wrapper and tosses it in the trash. He hears a child cry and wonders why and makes sure to say hello to some regular visitors. At the end of his walk, Krantz stops by the zoo’s pony rides, which are one of its latest attrac tions. He said he stole the idea from the Columbus Zoo, and his staff made it better. i North Korea needs hospital supplies BY CHRISTOPHER BODEEN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DANDONG, CHINA - Injured children lay on file cabinets as an overcrowded North Korean hospi tal struggled to cope without enough beds or medicine for hun dreds of victims from last week’s train explosion, an aid worker who visited the facility said Sunday. Sinuiju Provincial Hospital, just across the border from China, was treating 360 people injured in the blast, according to Tony Banbury, Asia regional director for the U.N. World Food Program. More than 60 percent of the vic tims there were children, he said. ^ “They clearly lack the ability to care for all the patients,” Banbury said. Thursday’s huge explosion in the town of Ryongchon, fed by oil and chemicals, killed 161 people and injured at least 1,300, officials said. The death toll rose by seven Sunday, but it was unclear whether the higher number re flected new fatalities or simply freshly confirmed casualties. Aid agencies didn’t say whether they expected the number to increase. As relief workers assessed dam age, trucks crammed with tents, blankets, canned food and packages of instant noodles rumbled across the Chinese frontier into North Korea, part of a multinational offer of help. South Korea, Japan and Australia also offered aid. Eleven trucks from China crossed the bridge into North Korea on Sunday, carrying $120,000 worth of aid. The trucks were driven by Chinese police and bore red-and-white banners saying “donations from the government of the People’s Republic of China.” Lee Yoon-goo, the Red Cross chief in Seoul, proposed coordi nating relief efforts with North Korea’s Red Cross in a telephone message via Red Cross liaison of ficers at the truce village of Panmunjom, in the buffer zone where the Koreas have faced off since their war in the early 1950s. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his country also would help if Pyongyang asks. “But at this stage, they do seem to be coping, albeit not very well, with this disaster,” Downer told Australian television’s Ten Network. In Sinuiju’s hospital, Banbury said the most serious injuries were suffered by children in a nearby school who were struck by a wave of glass, rubble and heat. Many had serious eye injuries, he said. STERLING UNIVERSITY Oaks i ~i % * • 252-2634 21 National Guard Rd. 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