Zoo Recognizes Employee’s 40-Year Service
with Honor of Naming Third Giraffe Calf

Springfield, Mo. – Reaching a 40-year service milestone as an employee is quite an accomplishment – worthy of considerable recognition. For Blanche Jones, administrative assistant at Dickerson Park Zoo, one of her gifts for 40 years of dedicated service to the park was the honor of naming the zoo’s third giraffe calf born this season.

Jones sought the counsel of friends and family, and the overwhelming consensus was to simply use her initials, B.J., for the calf’s name.

In 40 years, Jones has worked for three zoo directors and has been with the zoo through the full spectrum of success and disappointments – from the zoo’s near closing in the mid-1970s through the most ambitious expansion in the zoo’s history in 2004 and nine consecutive years of 200,000+ guests in annual attendance through 2012.

Dickerson Park Zoo is open daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m., weather permitting. The zoo will be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, and when the walkways are covered ice or snow. For more information, visit the zoo online at www.dickersonparkzoo.org, or call the zoo’s information hotline, 417-864-1800.

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Dickerson Park Zoo is a division of the Springfield-Greene County Park Board and is accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA).With its more than 200 accredited members, AZA is a leader in global wildlife conservation and your link to helping animals in their native habitats.