ROSELAWN - "The King of the Komodo Dragons" is gone.
That's how Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard described Johnny Arnett, a zookeeper who spent much of his 40-year career at the zoo until he retired two years ago.
Mr. Arnett gained worldwide acclaim for the study, care and breeding of the rare Komodo dragons, natives of Indonesia.
He survived the ferocious animals' repeated attempts to disembowel him and lived a life full of extraordinary travels and adventures.
Then, following an extended illness, Mr. Arnett, of Roselawn, died Nov. 6at Good Samaritan Hospital. He was 66.
Mr. Arnett played a pivotal role in the zoo's evolution, Maynard said. "He was here in that great growth period, when the zoo grew from a little corner city zoo into a major institution."
His wife, Tami Arnett, said her husband's legacy would be "his passion for animals remaining in their natural habitat - and if they couldn't remain in their natural habitat, then how to best take care of them in zoos so they would be sustainable for everyone to enjoy."
Before earning accolades as a zookeeper, Mr. Arnett's life was off to a rough start, his wife said.
Born June 6, 1945, in Jellico, Tenn., he was one of nine children. His mother couldn't afford to care for him and his siblings, so he spent time in foster homes and orphanages. His father was absent.
Then his life took an unexpected turn, launching a lifelong love affair with reptiles.
"He was an aimless 19-year-old when the federal Youth Corps program found him work" at the Cincinnati Zoo, People magazine said in a 1994 article on Mr. Arnett.
Soon, Mr. Arnett was offered a role no one else wanted: working with reptiles.
"I was scared to death," he told the magazine, "but it paid more."
As he later told the Enquirer: "I wanted to get a car and start dating, so I took the job."
Mr. Arnett had an affinity for herpetology, the study of reptiles.
"He found it fascinating. He found that there were just so many varieties and they were very misunderstood animals," Mrs. Arnett said.
His formal education included graduating from Cincinnati's Cutter Junior High, attending high school in Brownsville, Texas, and taking courses at Brownsville's Southmost College.
So Mr. Arnett's expertise was largely self-taught. "He read voraciously," his wife said.
He helped author scholarly articles on reptiles and assisted researchers, including William E. Cooper, a biology professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Mr. Arnett immersed himself in all things reptilian. Cooper noted: "He had the most extensive collection I have ever seen of beer cans and bottles depicting reptiles and amphibians on the labels."
After getting his start in Cincinnati, Mr. Arnett worked at zoos in Columbus, Knoxville, Tenn., and Brownsville, Texas, before returning to Cincinnati in 1979.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush gave a pair of Komodo dragons to the Cincinnati Zoo, and Mr. Arnett began working on getting the dragons to breed in captivity. He traveled to their native land and negotiated with other zoos to make the breeding program succeed.
It was no easy feat; female Komodos have been known to devour males they dislike.
By 1994, Mr. Arnett's work ranked the Cincinnati Zoo among only four zoos in the world to successfully breed Komodos at that time. Cincinnati also earned the world record for Komodo births: 48.
In 1997, Mr. Arnett returned to Indonesia to help Texas researchers collect dragon saliva for medical research. The trip was chronicled in the documentary "Komodo: To Capture A Dragon," on the cable channel Animal Planet.
In 1998, Mr. Arnett helped lead an international Komodo conference in Thoiry, France.
He belonged to the Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, the Explorer Society and was a founding member of the Zoological Herpefauna Association.
Mr. Arnett met his wife, the former Tami Kirschner, at the zoo around 1980. She was a student in a natural resource program.
Three years passed before the two ran into each other in Corryville, at Mayura Indian restaurant. They started dating - and two months into the romance, he proposed.
"I said 'no.' I wasn't ready to get married," she said. He persisted until she told him: "Quit asking me. When I decide it's time, I'll ask you."
They were married in 1985. Mr. Arnett later converted to his wife's religion, Judaism, and the couple were members of Wise Temple for many years.
They had two daughters, Mariah and Naomi, and each has a dragon named after her.
Mr. Arnett retired from the Cincinnati Zoo in 2009. By March 2010, he became very ill with diabetes and other health problems.
This March, his wife quit her job as a Hamilton County 911 dispatcher so she could stay home and care for him.
Mr. Arnett's services will be private; next spring, his wife intends to take her cremated husband's ashes and scatter them over Duck Pond, S.C. - a fitting tribute because "he'd go there to find snakes, just look at them and let them go," she said.
In addition to his wife, survivors include three daughters, Mariah Stalvey of Covington, Naomi Arnett of Beavercreek, Ohio, and Kristen Murphy of Middletown; a son, Kelly McEntee, of Huntington, W.Va.; three brothers, Daniel Hicks of Fairborn, Ohio, Dennis Hicks of Westwood and Randy Hicks;; three sisters, Shirley Hagedorn of Fairfield, Debbie Stewart of Vandalia, and Audrey Hicks;; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Memorials: Cincinnati Zoo's Conservation Fund, 3400 Vine St., Cincinnati, OH, 45220; or the charity of donor's choice. Weil Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
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