ForeverMissed
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His Life

The Life of Billy

August 10, 2012

In the beginning

“He always had a passion for animals. He liked raccoons,” Alberta Whitaker, Pottorff’s mother, said.

George was his first raccoon, and Pottorff’s sisters, Rebecca Shaffer and Dixie Jennings, said they would help their brother conceal his conservation efforts from the start by hiding the raccoons in their closet.

When Alberta began to notice flea bites on her children, she knew something was going on.

The three women laugh about it now, because they know it was only the beginning for Billy.

He always had a dog, Alberta added, and one summer Pottorff discovered an alligator — Oscar — which had been thrown in a pool, so he brought it home, fed it and took care of it.

Ron Wood, a childhood friend of Pottorff’s and a lawyer that eventually would represent Pottorff during the beginning stages of Cedar Cove, said his friend was always into everything.

Wood said back then everyone knew everyone in the small town of Louisburg, and the kids would all go to the swimming pool together, or down to the ballfields, which used to be located off of Metcalf Road.

“He could play the guitar. He could do a lot of things a lot of us can’t do,” Wood said.

But growing up had to happen fast in the 1960s when the draft was introduced to send troops to the Vietnam War.

And although members of Pottorff’s family, as well as Wood, said that Vietnam could change a lot about a person, it had the potential to change them positively, too.

“The Vietnam experience — I think the tigers made him change his life,” Wood said. “Sometimes Vietnam changes your life negatively, but sometimes positive things come out of those experiences too.”

Vietnam

Pottorff enlisted in the U.S. Army at 17 years of age in December 1968. He received training to become a military occupation specialist to repair helicopters and was first deployed to Vietnam on Oct. 10, 1969.

“When he went to Vietnam, he saw how they were cruel to the tigers,” Alberta said, adding that her son would detail what he saw in his letters to her.

B.J. Auch, a senior curator at Cedar Cove, board vice president, apprentice and friend of Pottorff’s, said he told her a few times of the atrocities he saw in Vietnam.

“He never saw a wild one, but they could hear them and knew they were out there. He would see in the local shops tiger parts, and babies, pickled and tiger things, and it made him mad,” she said.

In Asian countries, tigers could originally be found from the Caucasus Mountains and Caspian Sea to Siberia and Indonesian Islands, but according to the World Wildlife Foundation, there are as few as 3,200 remaining in the wild today, which is the lowest population recorded. The decrease in the tigers’ numbers are due to various reasons, such as loss of habitat, poaching, souvenirs and for use in traditional Asian medicines.

On April 26, 1970, Pottorff’s helicopter was shot down, and he suffered burns and wounds to more than 25 percent of his body. After recovering, however, he returned to Vietnam on June 8, 1971, continuing his service as a door gunner and maintenance repairer before eventually advancing to a crew chief. He flew on more than 25 aerial assault missions during his first tour from 1969 to 1970 while serving in the 162nd Assault Helicopter Company known as the Copperheads. He was awarded two Purple Hearts and numerous Awards of the Air Medals.

Pottorff came back to the states in 1972 and enlisted in the Kansas National Guard, but the impression the tigers had left on him while in the jungle was something he couldn’t shake.

The Foundation

Pottorff married in 1980 to Chris Watrouf, and together they had their son, Jesse, who joined the family with Pottorff’s oldest son, Billy DWayne.

“He was bound and determined he was going to build a home for the tigers and mountain lions and anything else that touched his heart,” Chris said.

Originally, Cedar Cove began just east of where it sits now, in the Pottorffs’ backyard. It began with a mountain lion named Fred.

“I was a little apprehensive at first, but I was all for it if it would make him happy,” Chris said, adding that the bond between her husband and Fred was awesome, especially since the two didn’t acquire Fred until he was well into adulthood.

Attorney Ron Wood said that 40 years ago, folks could do whatever they wanted with their own land, and no one worried about it.

“People used to have crocodiles or alligators, mules … There were always people that had animals, and no one complained,” he said.

Years ago, he added, there weren’t county or state regulations against owning wild animals, but as time went by, more regulations and permits were enforced.

In the winter of 1994, discussions began of moving the animals to a new location, but Pottorff was met with resistance — a lot of it.

Shaffer said she was attending a wrestling tournament, and Louisburg resident Shelly Tooley tapped her on the shoulder and started asking about the cats.

Shaffer told Tooley her brother was looking for help with the tigers, and Tooley, who had grown up with Pottorff, was all in.

Tooley became an instrumental part in the foundation of Cedar Cove and stuck by Pottorff’s side until her death in 2008.

“They were doing something every day,” Chris said of the pair. “They were like brother and sister.”

George Criswell was also an instrumental part in getting Cedar Cove off the ground, but he was first Pottorff’s neighbor.

“We respected each other’s territories, and he’d call me up and drink coffee with me,” Criswell said.

When Pottorff began to lament to Criswell about not knowing how to move the cats without running into problems from neighbors, Criswell offered up some of his property.

“I had 160 acres at the time and told him to just bring the cats to my place,” he said. “He acted like for the first time, he had someone behind him.”

Wood said he and Pottorff began looking at the best locations to put Cedar Cove on a portion of the property Criswell deeded over, 11 acres total, adding that many neighboring residents were unsure because they were concerned about their land being devalued.

“It brought on litigation from neighbors, and the neighbors sued,” Wood said, adding the idea was also met with resistance from the county and the city.

“The more people were fighting it, the more we needed to help him with his dream,” Karen Criswell, George’s wife, said.

Wood said if members of the community and other supporters of Pottorff’s idea had not voiced their support, the park would have been moved to Oklahoma.

The litigation process, Wood said, which began with the neighbors, then the city and the county, took a few years. Pottorff went through the permit process for everything on a local level, making sure everything was in order, but Wood added he also believed state and federal representatives inspected Cedar Cove.

“He didn’t lose hope,” Wood said. “He would get frustrated, but it was my job to calm him down and focus on taking care of the cats.”

Wood added that once members of the city began to support Cedar Cove, beginning during the legal process all the way through when the center was being built, it was a big effort on everyone’s part. Wood said eventually the city paid land owners surrounding Cedar Cove money to end the lawsuit.

“What kind of price tag do you put on making a man’s dream come true?” George said of helping his longtime friend.

Shaffer said she feels like everyone involved, especially Tooley and the Criswells, were integral in the process.

“I really feel like they were very instrumental, not only in donating the land, but again by being steadfast advocates and supporters — they stressed to the public … no fears, no qualms, no nothing, no reservations. They had confidence and felt perfectly at ease and safe with it there,” Shaffer said.

In 1998, the cat dens where Cedar Cove is now located were built by Pottorff’s brother-in-law, and everyone chipped in to help, volunteering their time.

Wood said several local businesses assisted with the process, adding his work with Pottorff was also mostly pro bono.

But he did it to help his friend, to watch the dream become a reality.

The ribbon cutting for Cedar Cove took place in September 2000, and those involved with it rejoiced.

Saving the Siberians

“From the angle of the experience he created out here, it is educational and so up-close and personal — that’s what’s unique about this place,” Steve Klein, Cedar Cove board president and senior curator, said. Klein was affectionately nicknamed “Too Tall” by Pottorff because of his height. He began learning under Pottorff in 2001-02. “Also, here it is a sanctuary, it’s not just caring for the animals’ physical well-being, but their mental well-being, too. It’s that love in his heart, and our hearts too, for these animals that is part of that experience.”

Wood said the educational portion of the sanctuary was one of the first pieces Pottorff wanted to implement.

“He always imagined school buses and kids and biology classes would come out,” he said.

Tooley was a major part of the process, logging in more than 9,000 volunteer hours at Cedar Cove and helping to dig 179 post holes under the blazing sun, according to a 2008 Herald story.

In that story, Pottorff said of Tooley, “Shelly was with me for 19 years, long before the new park opened. I tried to talk her out of it at first, because this job isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t make any money. But she didn’t care about the money, and she took to the work right off. She was a natural with the cats. She helped me build the new park, she’s really the co-founder. She was committed to the park 100 percent.”

Tooley’s death was a major blow to Pottorff in 2008, and the additional heartbreak of losing his son Jesse this year only added to that.

After Pottorff’s death on April 18, the rest of the Cedar Cove clan plan to carry out Pottorff’s dream themselves. Klein and Auch, as well as Della Jacot and Cammy Colton, will keep Cedar Cove running, “Because this is what it takes to fill Billy’s shoes,” Klein said.

“He’s a loss to the community,” Wood said of Pottorff’s death. “He followed his dream and was able to accomplish his dream.”

Auch said Pottorff was the most influential person in her life, and Klein added that Pottorff’s passion was infectious.

“Once the hook is set ... you can’t get away from this place,” Auch said. “There’s so much to say. There’s never an end of information to share about this place to try and infect others with. To spread the cause of what’s going on with these animals in the wild. In 25 years, when they have no home in the wild, we have to be prepared to operate as a time capsule to help preserve these animals. We fell in love with this place and the people who started it and who run it and we refuse to let it fail. This is something that is bigger than any of us.

“Here we are today with nothing but positive energy looking forward at the path that has been paved for us.”

Shaffer added that her brother is giving Klein two thumbs up from above, as Klein and others still work to educate the public about these endangered predators.