The Wildlife World Zoo is open after almost five months of being closed because of COVID-19. To celebrate this event, I interviewed Mickey Ollson, the founder of Wildlife World Zoo.

Ollson wanted a zoo from the time he was very young. When he was 10, he drew a map of his zoo. He had always loved animals, since he grew up on a farm with all sorts of farm animals, birds, and the family’s dogs. He even once had a pet alligator!

 One day in early April my dad took my sisters and me to play softball at Joaquin Murrieta Park. As we were playing, a Mandalorian drove up on his motorcycle and asked if he could join us. Due to the COVID-19 we all wore masks as we took turns pitching, hitting and fielding. At the end of our practice, the Mandalorian gave us each a gift card and told us to be the kindness we wanted to see in the world.

 I recently had the opportunity to interview Oro Valley K-9 police Officers Roger Reynolds and Mike Gaare with their dogs, Risu (pronounced E-su) and Vader. I wanted to interview them because I like dogs and the opportunity sounded awesome. Risu means ‘Squirrel’ in Japanese. Officer Reynolds named Risu that because his attention span is low, kind of like a squirrel.

I was interested to know why the Officers wanted to be policemen. Officer Reynolds responded that he was drawn towards a career in law enforcement because he wanted to serve and help people.