Former People Magazine photographer Ed Lallo visiting "Okie Orthodox Ostrich Raising Monks" display at the Oklahoma City Zoozeum.
The Orthodox Okies of Forest Park Offer Holy Protection to Ostrichlings
Oklahoma town of Forest Park (pop.: 1,250), 10 Eastern Orthodox monks are midwifing baby ostriches, and doing it a good deal better than the Oklahoma City Zoo, which had just about given up trying. Life at the zoo, after all, tends to be sort of, well, a zoo, whereas life at the Holy Protection Orthodox Monastery, where women never enter, where meat is never eaten, is quiet and serene. There, zoo-laid ostrich eggs are hatched and the chicks are brought through adolescence, then sent back to the zoo for sale to other zoos all over the world. “
In the late fall of 1981, after a seven-year career working as a photojournalist for a variety of newspapers, I decided that my talents would be better served as a freelancer. Withdrawing the little money I had saved from my Tulsa bank, I flew off to New York for a weeklong adventure of showing my portfolio to every photo editor that would spare five minutes of time.
Father Arsenios, father Seraphim and Brother Simeon cuddle three winged neonates oustide the only Eastern Orthodox monastery in Oklahoma in 1982. About ostriches, says Arsenios, "I had to learn real quick."
One of the five-minute stops included a trip to People Magazine. I was lucky enough to get the time of the photo editor, Mary Dunn, and assistant photo editor, MC Marden. Both echoed the words that I had heard many times during my trip, “we love your work, come up with an interesting story and we will assign it to you.”
In the spring of the following year I was watching a popular TV program of the time – “Real People.” The show contained a four-minute segament on the monks of the Oklahoma orthodox Monastery of the Holy Protection of the Blessed Virgin that raised ostriches – a natural for People I thought.
Working closely with Michael Wallis, a freelance Tulsa writer at the time and current author of David Crockett: The Lion of the West, we submitted a proposal to People – and a couple of weeks later I started shooting my first assignment. The four-page article appeared in the September 20th, 1982 issue.
Twenty-nine years later, the Orthodox Okies of Forest Park are back in my life.
The Patricia and Bryron J. Gambulos Zoozeum at the Oklahoma City Zoo, has included a display on the famous “Okie Monks” that includes artifacts, photos, the original magazine and of course ostrich eggs. Also included is a 1980 Nieman-Marcus Christmas catalog that featured ostriches raised by the monks – price $1500 for a pair.
The only museum of its kind in the country, the OKC ZooZeum is a place to experience the zoological and botanical memories that guests and staff have encountered at the Zoo for more than 100 years. Designed into the framework of a 1935 Works Projects Administration (WPA) building originally built as a bathhouse, the ZooZeum is located in the heart of the zoo next to the Elephant Pavilion in the Elephant Habitat.
“The Ostrich Odyssey exhibit came to life when the zoo came into possession of one of the monks original ostrich chick cages”, said Amy Stephens, Naturalist Instructor Supervisor and Zoozeum Project Manager. “We found it interesting and after further research we were able to get the original people magazine photos from Ed Lallo, as well as purchase the magazine and Neiman Marcus catalog on Ebay.”
Amy Stephens, Naturalist Instructor Supervisor and Zoozeum Project Manager
More than 25-years later, the photos and story of ostrich raising monks still holds up. During the first 20 years of People Magazine, stories and photos were focused on both real people and celebrities. The magazine was black and white, and was not afraid to devote space to uses the eye-catching photos prominently.
A few days after the monk story appeared in the magazine, I was sitting in my Tulsa apartment on a Friday afternoon when the phone rang. It was Mary Dunn, People’s photo editor. She wanted to know if I was available to shoot an assignment. Renown climber Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia sportswear, was expecting me in the morning in Jackson Hole, WY to photograph him climbing one of the Grand Teton’s peaks – thus began more than 15-years of phone calls all People Magazine photographers were used to receiving on a Friday afternoon.
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