Michelangelo had the Sistine Chapel. Capt. Ahab had Moby Dick. Johnny Morris has Wonders of Wildlife.
As construction presses on at the American National Fish and Wildlife Museum, the founder of Bass Pro Shops is immersed in the operations behind the scenes, according to museum leaders and colleagues of Morris.
The $80 million expansion and renovation started in December 2007 is largely funded by Morris and will connect to Bass Pro – bringing to completion his original vision from the 1980s.
Morris’ fingerprints can be seen in the planned displays and features, including a rain forest, shark and ray touch tanks, catfish and turtle feeding pools, live coral, a bird aviary and a nocturnal swamp. There also will be a 180-seat auditorium and 660 gallons of fresh and saltwater aquariums.
The project seemingly has taken on a life of its own since the doors closed in late 2007 after years of disappointing ticket sales. Original expansion plans increased the square footage to 126,100 from 92,000 square feet with a soft opening set for summer 2009.
Plans then grew to 235,000 square feet with a planned opening in late 2010. Current plans, according to WOW Board Chairman Rob Keck, would open the 342,355-square-foot facility by the end of 2012, more than tripling the size of the original museum. He said portions of the facility, including the Conservation Education Center/Exhibit Hall, should open by year’s end.
“The project has continued to grow as more resources have become available,” Keck said.
Lion’s share
Keck said the renovation and expansion is funded with private donations – “the lion’s share” of which came from Bass Pro and its founder Johnny Morris. A handful of Morris’ friends also have donated to the renovations, he said.
Morris, who carefully guards his privacy and through a corporate spokesman deferred questions to WOW officials, was the driving force behind the conservation museum before it opened in November 2001. His efforts resulted in a ballot initiative that raised more than $36 million in revenue bonds toward the $52 million construction, and he has been involved with its operations from the beginning.
The museum, which featured 225 species of fish and wildlife and a variety of interactive displays, opened to much fanfare with former presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter among its honorary board members. Within three years, however, the board approved a restructuring of its debt on its revenue bonds after attendance figures woefully missed their marks.
KSPR's SBJ Report on Wonders of Wildlife
The museum has averaged 225,000 visitors a year, according to
www.wondersofwildlife.org, against original annual projections of 900,000 guests.
In 2004, Morris swooped in with $10.3 million from his companies, Bass Pro and Tracker Marine, to enable the museum’s debt refinancing, and he delivered $11 million in letters of credit to secure the variable-rate demand notes that backed the museum. Some 1,500 bondholders at the time received 60 cents on the dollar under the tender offer.
WOW Executive Director Peggy Smith said that debt has since been paid off through museum revenues.
From the onset
Three founding members of the museum – former WOW executive director Fred Marty, deputy city manager with the city of Springfield; John Moore, former Drury University president and WOW board member; and Keck, the former longtime president of the National Wild Turkey Federation – said Morris has always been heavily involved in the organization’s operations.
Old friends Moore and Morris worked together to select original board members, choosing candidates who shared a significant commitment to hunting and fishing, such as Keck, who represented NWTF for roughly 30 years, and Julius Wall, a past president of Ducks Unlimited.
Moore said Morris worked hands-on selecting exhibits that tell the story of America’s heritage of hunting and fishing through architecture and design.
Moore said he met Morris, a 1970 graduate of Drury University, shortly after arriving in Springfield 28 years ago, and quickly discovered a shared love of the outdoors. Though Moore left the WOW board in 2006, he still serves with Morris on the Upper White River Basin Foundation’s Ozarks Water Watch board, which promotes water quality in the rivers, lakes and streams in northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri.
Moore said Morris’ original hope and plan was to connect the museum to the privately held Bass Pro Shops, but he yielded to political pressure to keep the buildings separate. Public sentiment at the time was that the museum, which was built with the help of public funds, could be seen as a tool to promote a private business.
“We said at the time, and I still believe it, it would have worked the other way,” Moore said. “Having the connection between the store and the museum would have simply helped the museum.
“I think we’re past that now. … The original worries about that have simply faded away,” Moore said.
Keck, who’s known Morris since a late 1970s encounter hunting wild turkey in Orlando, said Morris was always focused on education with regard to the museum.
“I think many people in the community have misunderstood this effort,” said Keck, who joined Bass Pro’s Red Head Pro Hunting team in 2009 after leaving NWTF. “The museum will not drive people to Bass Pro. Bass Pro will drive people to the museum.”
Keck said Morris first shared his museum idea while they were hunting in Missouri more than 20 years ago. More recently, Morris has traveled to museums in Atlanta and New York to develop his ideas for the renovation.
The project came under public scrutiny two years into renovations when Springfield Mayor Jim O’Neal asked Councilman John Rush to act as liaison between WOW and the city, and ensure that public funds were being used appropriately.
WOW is supported by a special taxing district, and its director, Smith, said the public funds it receives through the 1-cent hotel-motel tax collected at Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World go directly toward the museum’s educational efforts, for which WOW partners with a number of organizations, including the Missouri Department of Conservation and Springfield Public Schools. As of March 1, the museum had received $1,036,068 in hotel/motel tax funds since closing in December 2007, Smith said.
Rush said the museum was meeting its obligations under the 1999 agreement with the city that led to the establishment of the taxing district. He also said Smith has always promptly responded to requests for financial information, and he talks with her about once a month.
“I think the community may be under the impression that (renovation) is taking a long time, and it is, but what probably mitigates that is that Bass Pro is putting more and more money into it, making it a bigger project,” Rush said, adding that many people don’t realize that the current construction going on behind the Outdoor World is part of the future museum.
Rush said WOW board members quickly agreed to his request that sales taxes be used solely for education, though the museum is within its rights to apply those funds to construction.
To date, Smith said the museum has received $19.7 million in donations toward construction. In September, museum officials held a news conference to announce expanded renovation plans. Reports have put total costs of the construction up to $100 million. Where costs of the project can become muddied, according to Smith, is when Bass Pro’s own renovations, which are currently under way, are included with those of the publicly funded museum.
Keck said he understands the community’s frustrations with the delays in the expansion and renovation, but he believes people in the area would feel a great sense of pride when they see the fruits of the labor.
“This place is going to knock everybody’s socks off when it opens,” he said. “The wait will be well worth it.”
According to Moore, Morris’ vision for the museum was always about more than money.
“Johnny is a remarkable person because he has always had a distinctive vision that has involved our outdoor heritage,” he said. “(He’s) not just selling rubber worms over there.”[[In-content Ad]]
