Carly Peterson 1967

SAVE0778, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. Recently Mr. Ratliff asked me about Carly and in a nutshell he came from the Peterson family of horse, dog and pony fame and worked the Gil Gray elephants in the early 1960's. In 1965 Howard Suesz hired him to train five more baby elephants "Belle", "Judy", "Dixie", "Kitty" and "Boo Boo" (four of which are seen above). In 1979 the Suesz elephants were sold to Donnie Johnson and Larry Carden but by this time all that remained from this particular group was "Judy". I best remember Carly from the time he, Benny White and Billy Cox all worked at Busch Gardens. In those days, this was the most important place to take visiting friends since the beer was free.