Anchorage Daily News

Who can say that their best friend is an elephant? That they worry about wolverine and lynx snacks each morning? That the way to their office is past the musk ox to the bald eagle and turn right?

Meet Sammye and John Seawell, winners of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce 48th Gold Pan Awards event on Sept. 17. The Alaska Zoo founders have shepherded it from a single elephant to the 60-or-so-member Noah's Ark it is today. They've volunteered there for about three decades.

Near closing time on a recent day, a smattering of visitors lingered along the autumn-hued paths while a red fox slept in its cage and magpies punctuated the dusk.

John, 84, took off his trademark Stetson and went inside to handle a business call in a room dominated by a blueprint of the new elephant house. His wife held forth on the A to Z of zoo lore in the office next door.

"You're just lucky I got the macaw out of my office," she began, describing longtime office mascot Sam's disconcerting tendency to stifle conversation with his tantrums. With Sam ensconced elsewhere, she took a deep breath and began.

It all started with an elephant, explained Sammye, 86, weaving a tale involving Chiffon tissue, Anchorage's old S&F Foodland and a contest held in honor of the Alaska Purchase Centennial in the mid-1960s. Owners of two stores teamed up to sell a large share of Chiffon tissue and won a contest, the prize of which -- why, of course -- was Annabelle the elephant.

Seawell was destined to inherit Annabelle because she owned the only heated animal stall in town at Diamond H stables, the zoo's next-door-neighbor. The actual zoo and a fellow named John Seawell were not yet present, nor were two Gold Pans and a Lifetime Achievement Award that would one day be awarded by the chamber.

"They brought the baby elephant to me, to board," she said. "As a matter of fact, I picked her up at the airport in the horse trailer. It wasn't long before she was outgrowing the horse stall. People kept saying to me, 'You ought to build a zoo!' I told them that I'd go so far as to build an elephant house.

"But people kept bringing me animals. One lady gave us six ponies for pony rides. I turned down 30 monkeys. The state police brought us a black bear cub; that was Tuffy, our first bear. Somebody brought a brown bear cub. It seemed like every day something else appeared. People started leaving fish and moose meat at the door, and we fed the animals with those donations."

The Alaska Zoo was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1968 and opened in 1969. Community members had turned out to help build the zoo, with a Lions Club building the fenced enclosures for the animals. Visitors dropped quarters into a donation jar for a look at a real elephant.

John Seawell came into Sammye's life as the builder of the zoo's large pond and eventually her third husband. John was a mover and shaker on the local construction scene when he met Sammye, a resident since 1959 who'd worked in real estate and radio before starting the zoo.

"I told him what I wanted and he just laughed," she said. "He sat there and looked at me and laughed. He said that timing was everything; he was being picketed by women in Cityview because of an issue involving gravel trucks. They needed some good PR and guessed he could build a pond for an elephant."

They married in 1976. John served as the zoo's volunteer project manager for almost 20 years, designing the polar bear, snow leopard, Siberian tiger and other exhibits.

The zoo evolved from outhouse to flush toilets, funded through creative marketing such as the annual Zoolstice and Annabelle's paintings, which have netted close to $150,000 for the zoo. Maggie the elephant arrived in 1983, and Annabelle died years later at the age of 32.

The zoo gained fame through the media when Binky the polar bear snatched a tourist's tennis shoe in 1994. The shoe lives on, with a bite mark, as a souvenir in Sammye's closet. In keeping with the uproar of the legacy, there was a huge Styrofoam "Binky" model at the Gold Pan event.

That souvenir and others around the office, including a 1 1/2-pound piece of Annabelle's tooth, testify to the Seawells' lifetime achievement. "We really have enjoyed it," said John. "We're lucky to be as old as we are and have something to do and enjoy -- not just sitting at home watching TV or going to Hawaii every year. We have important things to do here that we enjoy."

Daily News reporter S. Jane Szabo can be reached at jszabo@adn.com.