Springbrook's Siah St. Clair in Star Tribune: 'Hard to Get My Head around Retirement'
The Fridley nature center director told the newspaper about tornados, tarantulas and what's next.
Siah St. Clair, longtime director at Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley, is the subject of a Q&A-style interview in the Star Tribune. (He is retiring after 35 years at the city-owned nature center.)
Brief excerpts from the long Star Tribune article:
A place like Springbrook brings out people who feel passionately about this place. ... It’s a privilege to simply be in the middle of all of that, and to work with all those people who have a commitment to see the nature center continue in a vibrant way. ...
I had taken my family on a vacation in Michigan. I got a phone call and was told to turn on the TV. And there was the famous Springbrook tornado, being filmed live. It was on the front page of the Star Tribune the next day. I had to leave my family and get on a plane and come back. ...
A number of years ago we had purchased new tiny baby tarantulas so we could use them in our programs. At the time, they were smaller than your thumbnail, but one of them escaped. About two months later, one of the female staff came running out of the ladies’ room. Let’s just say she was agitated. This little tarantula, which was now three times the size, came walking up out of the floor drain. I ran in there and captured it. We named the little tarantula Houdini. She’s quite large now, and we use her for programs all the time.
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