When Hurricane Ivan came, evacuation was the only option. There is not  a zoo in the country, or the world, that has a transport cage for every single one of their animals because they never think they will have to take them all off site at one time. They may have a half dozen transport cages but never enough to cage, and keep caged, about 400 animals.

This zoo had to be able to transport, and house, everything from a small bird to Class A animals.  Class “A” are the dangerous ones that can kill you. Patti Hall approached it like she has everything else in her life. The words “Can’t be done” wasn’t in her vocabulary. She put out a call for welders to build cages, and also got hog pens from the co-op, and in three days was able to move every one of the animals. 

Arriving at their temporary home, the big cats in cages had to be left on trailers.  ALL these animals were moved to her farm in Elberta, along with 32 members of the zoo crew family, 11 domestic dogs, 12 domestic cats, that stayed at her house for seven weeks. (Just before her husband passed away, she sold the farm, and moved to the Gulf Shores area.)

The days following the hurricane were hot and humid. The local fire department came to help cool down the animals. Because of Patti’s efforts and with the help of the community, they were able to save all the animals.

The zoo was 17 feet under water. Chucky the 11-foot alligator floated out of his cage but contrary to popular belief, he never got out of the perimeter of the zoo.  Stories had it that he was running rampant on the Gulf Coast and eating pet dogs, cats, and little children. Even CNN had a story running worldwide about Chucky. 

Three couples from Orange Beach had been traveling in Eastern Europe shortly after the hurricane, and they saw and brought back a Moscow, Russia newspaper that had run an article on Chucky. 

After the hurricane, every year for four years, CNN would call and ask how  Chucky was. Of the entire episode, Patti says, “It wasn’t a zoo, it was a three ring circus.”

Patti was chosen PERSON OF THE WEEK on Peter Jennings World Nightly News, the WEATHER CHANNEL featured the zoo in an ANIMAL STORM STORY, and she appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. National Geographic and People Magazine also featured Patti, and the story of the evacuations to her home. 

Patti Hall was born in Reading, Ohio, a little town north of Cincinnati. Her dad played pro baseball for the Cincinnati Reds and was a local celebrity. When she was two he was injured and forced to retire from the professional game. He then went to work for a golf club manufacturer. His new job was to drive pro golfers to where they could try out and/or test new equipment… new heads, shafts, or other golf equipment. He loved golf and was involved in it, or playing it, six days a week. 

Patti had 3 sisters and before he retired, their Dad bought all the girls clubs, balls, bags, shoes, gloves and whatever else they  needed to play. Her sisters played but Patti kept her golf equipment for 15 years in storage. It was still in the original bags and boxes. Not long ago she donated her golf stuff to a Gulf Shores’ High School lady golfer who was approximately the same size, and everything fit her… new shoes, gloves still in the original plastic bags, and clubs that Patti had never used. Her husband’s clubs were donated to the Gulf Shores High School golf department for a student to use as needed.

After high school Patti went to University of Louisville where she graduated as an art major. She had always wanted to be a vet, but was told by her high school guidance instructor that “women don’t become vets”. They told her she’d never be accepted into veterinary school, even though her grades were exceptional. 

She attended a Catholic high school, so she even had several courses in Latin, a subject she thought she’d need in studying medicine. She just couldn’t believe she would not get into a Vet school. 

Her dad had raised her, and her three sisters, to be able to fish, hunt, hike, hit a baseball, and throw a football as well as any of her male counterparts. Suddenly, the women’s lib movement made a little sense. She had been brought up to believe that you could do, or be, anything you wanted to be if you worked hard to achieve your goal. 

To now be told you couldn’t be a vet because you’re a woman was devastating.  She ended up majoring in Art, but when she got out of school and at every opportunity, Patti volunteered to work in the local zoo. 

After graduation, she took a job teaching in a Montessori school and eventually became school Director. She stayed there for about 8 years.

Wanting to broaden her experiences, she accepted a position to assist in spear-heading a pilot project funded under the Older Americans Act. While she was there, they set up four other centers throughout the county with 60,000 seniors identified, as well as providing and informing them of a myriad of services.

Moving on once again, she worked for an agency where she was in charge of the Travel Department. She got to travel all over the world. Patti is a people person, and “never meets a stranger”.  She still keeps in touch with many of the people she met in her travels. 

During one of her trips down to St. Thomas she met the Publisher of the major newspaper for the Islands. He was an American whose his company had re-located there. Two years later, they ended up getting married, and Patti moved to St. Thomas where they lived for two years. Crime was terrible, and though she absolutely loved the Island life, after several crime incidents they headed back to the Mainland.

Patti spent the next 14 years in the publishing field with her husband, holding key management positions with the American Cities Business Group and General Manager for American International Publishing Inc.

Eventually, they decided it was time to retire, and the couple sold the International magazine that he had started. 

Patti was a “southern girl by heart”. 

They had moved to Connecticut, but she hated the cold. One day they got in their car, with no itinerary, and drove down the East coast as far as Savannah, cut across to the Gulf Coast, and ended up in Gulf Shores. Patti had a friend there whose family owned the Pink Pony Pub and Sea Horse Motel. 

She fell in love with the area and decided that this was where they wanted to live.  The day they arrived, the water was turquoise blue, the sand snow white, the temperature was perfect and everything just felt right. After uprooting, they bought a property on Ono Island.

Moving to ONO Island in 1995, Patti got restless from being a stay-at-home wife.  She again volunteered to work at the zoo. She gave more and more of her time to the zoo. Eventually, she was put in charge of certain areas of the zoo. Fellow workers here started gravitating to her for advice, or assistance. The previous director started asking her to do business reports and had her handling the everyday operations.

She never dreamed she’d become the director of the zoo, but working with animals was her passion. She loved the animals and the people who cared for them. 

In June of 1997 she was asked to become the director and she accepted. Patti was hired to run the zoo for the summer and was told that in the Fall, the zoo would be dissolved. She was told that there was just no money to keep it going. 

Patti said to the Board of Directors, “Give me a chance. With all the developments and people moving in, there has to be money around.” She asked them to look at the area. There are thousands of visitors to this area, there is a source to be tapped, and she told them that she could do it.

The board agreed to let her try, but told her, “Don’t come before us in January and ask for money to feed the animals or pay the staff.  There is none.” She walked out of the office, ready to attack the problems. She got the zoo cleaned up, got the proper diets for the animals to make them healthy and invited real estate people to her home for Sunday morning breakfasts to hit them up for donations. For the first two years she didn’t take a paycheck, in order to help make her employees’ payroll. 

Animal Planet became aware of the extraordinary efforts made by Patti and her staff to save the animals from harm’s way and featured the zoo in a 13-part series which aired nationally throughout 2006 and internationally beginning in 2008 to the present. She was asked to help make the Series on Animal Planet (THE LITTLE ZOO THAT COULD) which gave the zoo, and the Island, national and International attention. It also made the zoo a significant amount of money thru donations and they even had money willed to the zoo after the series. 

The zoo is non-profit and money is always an issue. While I was interviewing Patti, someone called and said they just hit an 8-point buck and wanted to know if the zoo wanted it as meat for the carnivorous animals. Another call was about a loose Marmoset and a two more calls were on hold.       

“Extraordinary” doesn’t even come close to describing this remarkable lady. They say that only 2% of the people in the world have red hair and blue eyes. Patti is definitely a lady in the top 2%, not just because of her red hair and freckles, but because she’s a lady that has done spectacular things, never ducked from responsibility and tackled every problem that has come along, head on. She’s a lady that young adults can, and should, look up to with admiration.  She demonstrates what can be accomplished with a lot of hard work and determination. 

Those here ON THE ISLAND can be proud of her and are fortunate to have her here to contribute to what’s good about where we live. She and Gulf Coast Zoo give visitors another reason that this is a tourism destination and gives us all another place to enjoy. Even the Snowbirds get involved and every year, for the past 9 years, all the Snowbird clubs have come together and put on “The Low Country Boil” . . . a wonderful fundraiser that helps to keep the zoo going.

As Patti walked around the zoo, I watched her interact with the zoo crew, children, adults and adult parents that were visitors.  All will agree.. “to know her is to love her”. Patti Hall is a great lady that I’m proud to be able to call her my friend.