Gene Demeter, branch manager for Direct Equity Mortgage, stands with his wife, Sandy, who is a consultant for the branch. Sandy?s office is filled with memorabilia from her life, including the time she spent working at the former Nevada Wild Animal Preserve.Jacob Kepler/View
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Sitting behind her worn wooden desk, Sandy Demeter tears up as she remembers the day she betrayed her favorite mandril baboon.
It was 1979, and she had been working at the former Nevada Wild Animal Preserve on Racel Road where the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary now sits. The preserve was closing, and all the animals were being transported to their new homes.
"He was going to a zoo in Minneapolis that had a female," Demeter said. "I wanted nothing to do with getting him in the barrel. I stayed in my office. The workers tried for six hours to get him in and finally sent my younger son up to get me. They told me if they couldn't get him in (the barrel), they were going to tranquilize him. So I went down there and told everyone to back off. I gave him a few caramels and then threw one in the barrel and he jumped right in. He trusted me."
Demeter spent seven years working at the preserve, and she said it was her first job that involved animals.
"I just took to it like a duck to water," she said.
After moving to Las Vegas from Washington in 1972 with her two young sons, Demeter began working as an assistant teacher on Mount Charleston. She said she kept taking the children to the animal preserve and began working there part-time until she was asked to be an assistant manager.
By that point, she already had taken quite a liking to the animals, including tigers, lions, Alaskan timberwolves, hyenas, a hippopotamus, a leopard, an elephant, a jaguar, dolphins, llamas and camels.
"I can't explain to you how, but I was just meant to do this," she said.
Along with caring for the animals, she gave tours of the preserve and put on shows for the guests. Demeter said her children grew up around the animals and a few of them even became like their pets.
Demeter remembers her time at the preserve fondly, but it didn't go by without mishaps.
"There was a time when I was trying to stop talking with my hands, so I would put them behind my back. I was giving a tour to two nuns and about 20 children and moving my hands behind my back. A lion's gate was left open; he came out, saw my hands moving; I jerked and he bit."
Demeter said she was very calm when the lion bit a finger off of her right hand. She got the lion back in the cage, and the tour continued with another guide. She said she saw her finger near the cage and accidentally kicked it under the lion. She said he ate it, and she was so mad, but the guests and the lion were calm because she did not panic. She went to the hospital, but never went into shock like the doctors expected.
"I was never nervous around animals. Even after that," she said.
Demeter said although the preserve made money, the owners decided to shut the sanctuary down.
"We did not close it until we found excellent homes for all the animals," she said.
As the sanctuary was closing, Demeter didn't want to stop working with animals, so she bought a pet store called Fishville at 1440 N. Decatur Blvd.
"We used to do a lot for the Head Start program," she said. "The kids would come sit and see mice, hamsters, rats, gerbils, ferrets. We even had a cheetah and a raven at the store. The kids had never seen anything like it."
She only owned the store for about two years, but she began dog grooming, which brought her on monthly visits to Beatty. It was in the small town that she met her future husband, Gene, who was working as a geologist. Gene was with the group that discovered the Bullfrog Mine.
"She distracted me from three million ounces of gold," Gene said.
They officially met at a birthday party for a mutual friend.
"She showed up with two enormous fossil teeth," Gene said. "She came up to me and asked 'What are these?' "
"He just said 'where did you get these?' " she added. "I told him I dug them up on the animal preserve."
"She knew what they were. She was just trying to impress me," Gene said.
While doing dog grooming, the Centennial Hills resident also worked as a valet driver at the Fashion Show mall. She said it was a great time, and she met many interesting people, including celebrities such as Mike Tyson, Sammy Davis Jr., Rip Taylor and Whitney Houston.
Today, Demeter works as a consultant with her husband's financial firm, Direct Equity, at 7656 W. Sahara Ave., Suite 110.
She said it was 1992 when Gene was asked to move to Toronto for work. They didn't want to go to Canada, so they started a business specializing in mortgages. Demeter said they started out as loan officers with two other people all working at the wood desk she still uses today.
"I loved that I could take someone that was young and educate them. I could sit down with someone who had an interest rate of nine and get it to a seven and put that saved money in a mutual fund to save for their future," she said.
Demeter said now that she is in her 70's, she could retire, but she won't.
"We have a loyal staff, with seven staff members and 20 loan officers. The people here need jobs," she said.
Demeter said she still gets hired to work with animals sometimes and is "the only person to bring a lynx to a mortgage conference."
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