Bob Willie, executive director of the Chattanooga Ballet, with wife Robbin
photo by Andrew Clark
Tom Donovan, long time Zoo board member and financial contributor, with his wife, daughter and son-in-law Laura and Jeff Smith. Barbara Donovan, mother of Laura and late wife of Tom, was a much-loved Chattanooga Zoo devotee and donor. The Asian exhibit was largely funded by the Donovan family, including the purchase and care of Barbara's favorite zoo resident, Nigalya the red panda.
photo by Andrew Clark
Bill and Donna Killian are animal lovers and great friends of the Chattanooga Zoo
photo by Andrew Clark
Celebrity speaker Jeff Corwin with Chattanooga's Sonia Young, The Purple Lady. Mrs. Young is a Zoo board member and contributor.
photo by Andrew Clark
Sydney the camel, who is more vociferous than his companion Frank, talks to the crowd of 300 who came out to support the Zoo Saturday night. In fact, Sydney's bellowing grunts and growls routinely can be heard for several square blocks around Warner Park. Sydney and Frank dined on hearts of Romaine lettuce and fresh hay Saturday night. One guest nearly lost a full beer bottle to Syndey's curious snout.
photo by Andrew Clark
A friendly sculpture giraffe now greets guests at the Zoo's entrance. Plans are afoot to build a state-of-the-art giraffe exhibit at the Zoo. The project is expected to cost around $6 million, and Zoo fundraisers and donors are confident the money will be raised.
photo by Andrew Clark
Saturday evening was warm and clear, and despite numerous other events in Chattanooga, including UTC Homecoming festivities and the regionally popular River Rocks outdoors competition and festivities, more than 300 Chattanooga Zoo supporters came out for the 13th annual Banana Ball fundraiser.
This year's celebrity guest host was Jeff Corwin, an animal and nature conservationist, best known as host and executive producer of the Animal Planet cable channel television programs The Jeff Corwin Experience and Corwin's Quest.
Chattanooga caterer Lee Towery created a lavish spread of beef tenderloin, jumbo shrimp cocktail, lobster tacos, beef short ribs, chicken parmesean, an assortment of roasted vegetables, mini quesadillas, grilled bacon-wrapped bananas, black bean chutney tortilla cups, and a crowd favorite that Towery calls "Firecracker" shrimp, which are lightly fried and tossed in a spicy cream dressing.