In tribute: Zoo assistant director's absence is felt

CLOVIS - Mark Yannotti loved his Harley-Davidson, his granddaughters and the San Francisco Giants.

But he was most known around Clovis for his love of animals, a love that often extended beyond the walls of the Hillcrest Park Zoo where he worked since 1988.

Yannotti, the zoo's assistant director, died June 6 in his sleep. Family members didn't know the specific cause of death, but noted he had suffered a heart attack just a week prior.

Yannotti was pretty much synonymous with the Clovis zoo and his absence is felt, Director Vince Romero said.

"Everybody knew Mark," Romero said. "He had friends everywhere. He would talk to anybody, and help anybody, from our workers to the customers to our volunteers."

The work often came home, as Yannotti was usually the one who would care for animals that needed a little extra attention. Daughter Kelsey Stockwell recalls sharing her home as a child at different points with a baby cougar, a spider monkey and Sooner when he was just a tiger cub.

Despite the countless hours he dedicated to the zoo's animals, Stockwell said she never felt neglected.

"My dad was a friend," Stockwell said. "He had good advice. He was my constant companion. He was always up for whatever I wanted to do. That extends to his grandchildren. My girls want to play princesses, Grandpa was always up to be the prince or the horse or whatever they wanted him to be."

Yannotti, 64, was born in Palo Alto, Calif. He came to Clovis after his parents moved here because he thought he could find a job. He did. And that's also where he met his future wife Kathy, who began working at the zoo three years earlier.

"We didn't spend time together," Kathy said. "We both had our own jobs."

Despite their limited work interactions, they developed a friendship. That progressed into dating, and they decided to get married before the city implemented a rule banning spouses from working in the same department.

Even after they got married, they'd rarely see each other once they got to the zoo grounds. An average day, Kathy said, would feature three times together - arriving at work, lunch together and leaving work.

When he wasn't tending to zoo animals on the weekends, Kathy said, Mark was tending to his dogs. He always had a dog of some variety, and would take his Alaskan Malamute and Border Collies to dog shows in New Mexico and Texas before the hobby got too expensive.

Romero said Yannotti got along with almost every animal, with the exception of a hyena that was partial to Kathy. While Sooner was probably Yannotti's favorite, there were plenty of other nominees.

"He loved them all like his kids," Romero said.