Karl Anderson:
CLASS OF 1972
Azusa High SchoolClass of 1972
Azusa, CA
Karl's Story
After high school, I spent 4 years in the Air Force, with tours in Germany and New Mexico. I then attended Citrus College and Cal State LA, earning a BA in Journalism and a BS in Zoology. It was also during this time that I took several courses from Gentle Jungle (then based in Riverside), which gave me experience working with lions, leopards, tigers, elephants, bears, chimps, orangutans, camels, and other exotics. In 1980, I became a NAUI diving instructor, and started teaching diving classes for Sports Chalet in La Canada. I also worked as a substitute teacher for Azusa and Monrovia school districts, and then moved to Key Largo, Florida, where I began collecting artifacts and specimens for various museums. I moved to Oregon in 1984, where I opened my own dive shop and continued teaching SCUBA just south of Tillamook and at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, raising cougars at the same time. In 1987, a took a position teaching diving in Brownsville, Texas for a school that worked with juvenile offenders. From there, I moved to Victoria, where I drove an armored truck until being hired by the Federal Reserve Bank in San Antonio. But the Pacific Northwest was calling me back, and so in 1990 I moved back to Oregon, where I worked as a seasonal biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and then began my first full time job as a journalist for the Curry County Edition of The World Newspaper in Coos Bay. Two years later, I moved to Portland, taking a job with an armored truck company, and formed Wildlife Educ...Expand for more
ators of Oregon at the same time, presenting school assemblies throughout Oregon. I was also the public affaitrs represenative for the Oregon Army National Guard, and the only places they sent me in 3 years was 2 weeks to Devils Lake, North Dakota (in January, no less!) and 18 days to Jamaica! In 1994, I was offered a position as adminsistrator for Gentle Jungle in southern California (the same exotic animal school I had attended in 1997 and 1998), and Wildlife Educators of Oregon then evolved into Wildlife Educators of America. I then developed a relationship with Animal Planet, and began doing presenations for them from coast to coast, with shows in Washington DC, Florida, Denver, and California. During this time, I made two appearances on THE TONIGHT SHOW w/ Leno, and also appeared on several other TV shows, meeting and working with a variety of celebs including Martin Short, Dustin Hoffman, Ervin "Magic" Johnson, and Robert Urich. By 1999, I was getting burned out of being on the road 6 or 7 days a week, and then took a position with Delta Airlines in Seattle, where i spent the next 3 years. I also managed a dive shop in Tacoma and wrote for the Peninsula Gateway newspaper in Gig Harbor, and formed Ravenswood School of Jousting in 2005. In 2007, I took a position as staff writer for the Alamogordo Daily News in New Mexico, and moved the school there at the same time, which is still with me today. I have been very fortunate to have met some great people, seen some great places, and done some cool things in my 54 years.
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