Published: January 10, 2008 10:54 am      

A love for wildlife

While most people in Garvin County associate Annie Marchbanks with the Garving County Rural Water District #4, what they may not know is she has a love for exotic animals.

During the week Marchbanks assists water customers as the office manager at the Rural Water District #4 office located at 106 East McClure in Pauls Valley

But on the weekends she is a volunteer at an area exotic animal park, a job she looks forward to week in and week out.

“Every Saturday, from 9 to 5, I work as a volunteer at the Tiger Safari Exotic Zoological Park in Tuttle. It’s an interactive place where we take animals out of the cage and let the public play with them, hold them and get their pictures taken with them.

“We have baby bears, tigers, lions, a coatimundi, cougar, emus, marmoset monkeys, lemurs, an albino raccoon, alligator — anything that’s small enough that can’t hurt people,” Marchbanks explained.

“We also have some larger animals there like ‘Rajah’ which is a Siberian Tiger that is the official mascot for the Tuttle football team.”

Marchbanks said she made the decision to work as a volunteer at Tiger Safari after paying a visit to the park two years ago.

“I saw something on TV about the park and they were showing a baby black bear. I decided to go have a look at it for myself, so I went up and held the baby bear,” Marchbanks recalled.

“I fell in love with the place and have been volunteering ever since. I really love working there. In fact, it’s my favorite job.”

Marchbanks started working for the Rural Water District in August of 2006 but before that she was employed for 11 years at the old Pauls Valley City Hall where she held the position of Billing and Collecting Clerk for the Water Department.

A Garvin County native and graduate, Marchbanks said she was born at an historic medical facility on North Chickasaw Street in Pauls Valley.

“I was born in the old hospital when it was a pink building next to Dee Barton’s Drug Store. I think it’s apartments now,” she said.

“Over the years that followed I went to school in Paoli, Wynnewood and Pauls Valley and eventually graduated from Elmore City.”

Marchbanks has been married to Robert Marchbanks of Paoli for the last 43 years and has one child, Robert Jr., who lives with his wife Jackie in Goldsby. Ann said she is also the proud grandparent of four “gorgeous granddaughters.”