It’s a pleasant evening, and Jack and Suzi Hanna are relaxing at their home in Dublin’s Muirfield Village. At 62, Jack Hanna, one of America’s most beloved and busy zookeepers, deserves to put his feet up. During 30 years with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Hanna has helped transform the quaint collection of reptiles and mammals into a nationally recognized showplace.

Under Hanna’s guidance the zoo transitioned from cage-like enclosures to natural-looking habitats, and the grounds grew to include new attractions and areas representing different regions of the world. Thanks in part to Hanna’s likeable media persona — dressed in khakis and bearing creatures great, small and sometimes strange on shows such as “Good Morning America” and “The Late Show with David Letterman” — attendance at the zoo spiked more than 400 percent from 1978 to 1993, when Hanna was zoo director.

But the peaceful time Jack is spending with Suzi, 61, and the couple’s beloved dogs, Tasha and Brass, is but a moment’s respite. Despite rumors to the contrary, Hanna is not ready to call it a career — the zoo’s director emeritus acknowledges that he’s moving around a bit slower these days and that he cherishes time spent with family, especially his six grandchildren.

Hanna has visited every continent on Earth. Yet he has more goals to accomplish and new worlds to discover.

 “I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes,” he says in his characteristic Southern drawl. “I could have never dreamed the life that I’ve lived, being a part of building one of the most phenomenal zoos in the world, traveling the world like Marlin Perkins.

“But I know down deep that retirement is something I couldn’t do. I’ll always be doing something. Always, until the day I drop dead. I know now, though, that I can’t keep the same pace. I try, but it’s difficult.”

Yet Hanna marches on, raising money for the zoo, taping television shows, making life better for the animals. Last year was a pivotal one for the Hannas and the zoo:

 • In May, the zoo opened Zoombezi Bay, a 23-acre water park on the grounds of the former Wyandot Lake, which the zoo bought from Six Flags in 2006. It renamed the Wyandot Lake “dry” ride area Jungle Jack’s Landing.
 • In June, the Hannas’ television show, “Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild,” won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Series.
 • In July, Jeffery Swanagan, former executive director of the renowned Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, became the new executive director of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.
 • In September, Jack released his new autobiography, Jungle Jack: My Wild Life.
 • In October, the zoo broke ground on its 13-acre, $20 million Polar Frontier, highlighted by the return of polar bears visible under water. It also will house Arctic foxes and brown bears and is scheduled to open in the spring of 2010.

“The Columbus Zoo is now one of the premier zoos in the country,” Hanna says. “It’s growing beyond comprehension.”

And the Hannas anticipate the zoo’s continued growth. The zoo currently is home to more than 6,000 animals representing more than 700 species. More than 1.5 million people visit the zoo annually.

 

There is plenty of room for expansion on the zoo’s 580 acres. In upcoming years the zoo plans to create a 75-acre African savannah and a South American exhibit. Long-term goals may incorporate a resort-style hotel.

Hanna is especially proud to have welcomed Swanagan, who got his start at the Columbus Zoo in 1979 under Hanna’s tutelage. Hanna says he sees a little of himself in the energetic, hands-on director.

“This guy’s taking over something I’ve worked so hard for,” Hanna says. “It’s a big relief off my shoulders.”

Yet as the zoo expands, there are more demands on the couple. Jack travels 260 days out of the year on behalf of the zoo, conducting about 80 speaking engagements. In addition to his work at the zoo, he represents all the Busch Gardens and Sea Worlds in the United States.

 “I’m never in the same bed two nights in a row,” Jack says. “There’s that constant motion: Different hotel. Different tent. Different country. Different time zone.”

Says Suzi: “Sometimes I feel like we’re hamsters running around on this wheel, and we just can’t get off.

Colorful drawings decorate the Hannas’ kitchen cabinets. “I love you J. J.” reads one in crayon. The initials stand for “Jungle Jack.”
The older he gets, Jack says, the more he appreciates moments spent with his family.

The Hannas have three daughters. Their oldest, Kathaleen, lives in England with her husband, Julian, and their two children, Gabriella and Jack. Their middle daughter, Suzanne, and her husband, Billy, live in Cincinnati with their four children: Brittany, Blake, Alison and Caroline. The Hannas’ youngest, Julie, works in the zoo’s promotions department as an animal educator.

“Every moment we spend with our children, especially when we have all three daughters together, is beyond special,” Suzi says. “Then you add this new dimension of grandkids into the mix, it’s unbelievable.”

Take, for instance, a trip the Hannas made this summer. The entire family spent 10 days in England, where they attended the baptism of grandson Jack, who was named after his grandfather.

“The only thing my kids named after me before was a rabbit named Jack Rabbit,” Hanna says.

Like a jackrabbit, Hanna was always on the go, building the zoo’s reputation day by day. Yet as he looks back, he admits that the time he spent away from home while raising his children at times was a burden.

 

 “What I really regret is that I didn’t get to see my kids that much because I was working,” Hanna says.

For the future, however, Hanna believes he has found a solution. He’s worked his children into his latest television series, “Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild.” Jack, Suzi and their daughters travel the corners of the globe to meet fascinating people and animals.

“It’s exciting now to have a career that involves my family,” says Jack, who also serves as executive producer of the unscripted show. “It’s me taking my family into the family of wild animals.”

The formula is not only working for them, but it garnered Jack his first Emmy Award. The show, filmed in high-definition, airs in Columbus at 6:30 a.m. on Saturdays on WWHO. 

Jack and Suzi relish their moments together. They’ve been a couple for more than 40 years, and mostly everything they do revolve around promoting the zoo. Their relationship was an animal attraction from the beginning.

 “Sue was with me on this journey,” Jack says.

 “He’s the same to me as he was back in college,” says Suzi, relaxing beside her husband in sweatshirt and capris. “Jack is Jack.”
 “Jungle Jack,” Jack says.

Hanna grew up on his father’s farm outside Knoxville, Tenn., and volunteered for a veterinarian when he was 11. “I loved cleaning cages and being around all the animals,” he says. He graduated from an all-boys high school near Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1965 and found his way to Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio.

It was there that the zany animal lover with the Coke-bottle glasses met an attractive cheerleader named Suzi Egli while majoring in business and political science. Suzi was charmed by Jack’s antics, especially his pet donkey named Doc that lived behind his fraternity house and became the college mascot. The two married during their senior year in 1968.

After college, the newlyweds returned to Knoxville and opened a pet shop called Pet Kingdom. “I loved working at the pet shop but knew that I always wanted to work at a zoo,” Jack says. In 1973, Jack jumped at an offer to direct the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford.  He stayed two years, long enough to witness the opening of a new zoo.

When he returned to Knoxville, though, tragedy struck. One day Jack and Suzi noticed that little Julie was feeling sick. When her temperature spiked but wouldn’t relent, they took her to a hospital. This was no ordinary illness. Julie had leukemia.

Fortunately, the Hannas got her care just in time. After months of chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments, Julie recovered. The years spent caring for Julie were a blessing in disguise. Ready to work again in a zoo, Jack saw an ad for a zoo director in Columbus. He got the job, and the couple has lived in central Ohio ever since. 

Hanna said his top priority at the Columbus Zoo was to increase attendance by offering education and entertaining events. He helped expand the zoo’s grounds and create habitat environments for the animals, the grandest of which was the outdoor gorilla exhibit.

And after a few years, the Hannas’ wild ride of their own commenced. Jack made his first appearance on “Good Morning America” in 1983, talking about the birth of twin gorillas born at the Columbus Zoo. He hasn’t stopped since. He now makes regular appearances on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Larry King Live” and the “Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Now that the zoo is on solid ground and expanding rapidly, the Hannas often take time to reflect on where they’re headed.

 

“You get to be over 50, and you start to realize how many years you’ve got left,” Jack says. “I don’t care who you are, all these thoughts will start coming into your head.”

To that end, the Hannas aren’t ready for a full-time, simple life. They’re always moving, always pushing, often to the benefit of others.

They recently helped African residents through a zoo-sponsored program called Partners in Conservation. Founded in 1991, the program helps to rebuild war-ravaged countries in central Africa, including Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, by teaching its people to respect each other and their natural resources and wildlife.

The Hannas built a cottage in Rwanda, where the landscape is fertile and hilly. In the mountains live gorillas, and in the countryside reside poor farmers. More than half of Rwandans live below the poverty line.

 “There is so much poverty there,” Suzi says. “The children greet us like we’re royalty, just because we’re helping.”

Says Jack: “Later in life you realize that helping people gives you more self-satisfaction than owning a house.”

The constant motion has taken some toll on the couple. Last summer Jack had knee surgery necessitated by arthritis and by Hanna “chasing a camel and a kangaroo down the street in Austin, Texas.”

During an appearance on the Letterman show last summer, Jack slapped his knee in response to one of the host's jokes. Jack then grimaced and grabbed his knee. The crowd laughed as if his knee-jerk reaction was part of a slapstick routine. But the pain was very real.

 “I appreciate my health every day now,” Jack says. “I tell my doctors, I don’t want to run or climb Mt. Everest. I just want to hike.”

 The Hannas love to escape to Montana, where they have a home overlooking Flathead Lake. They like to spend parts of the summer taking in the Big Sky country, experiencing simple pleasures such as camping.

 “The happiest place we are sometimes is in our little 24-foot camper that we pull behind my truck. You talk about happy and simple. Sue gets up and cooks on the campfire. We go to bed at 8:30 or 9 o'clock because there’s nothing else to do. It’s so much fun to be simple.

“Oh Lord, we take baths in the creek. Isn’t that simple?”