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5.13.2001 00:05
Thanks
to a boy,
zoo has
new King
• The winner of the contest to name a baby polar bear is a 7-year-old from Cranston.
BY LISA BIANK FASIG
Journal Staff Writer
She won't be called Jell-O or Kool Whip or Peppermint Paddy. Not Vanilla Ice, Ice-C or Mr. T. She won't even be called Buddy Bear, Buddy See or Little Buddy.
From now on, the smallest bear in Roger Williams Park Zoo will be called Kobe, a giant's name by a little boy who just wishes he were big.
Andrew Hilliard, a 7-year-old from Cranston, picked the winning name for the zoo's five-month-old polar bear cub, ending a two-week contest and beating out about 30,000 contestants who entered nearly 3,000 names nationwide. At a ceremony yesterday at the zoo, the surprised towhead said that the name stands for King of Bears Everywhere.
"Remember, the littlest should be the biggest," Andrew told a crowd that included zoo officials, Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., and 49 other contest entrants and their families. "When you're the littlest you don't get to do something you like.
"How's your polar bear?" he went on reading. "Does he get to do whatever he wants to do? Is the father bear treating the little bear nicely?"
Andrew, a second grader and the smallest in his family, read his remarks from an essay written in April, when he made his entry and didn't yet know if the cub was a boy or a girl. Though he brought the essay with him, he had no idea he was the winner until Kobe's name was unfurled one letter at a time.
"He just thought of it, and I said, 'You just have to think about what it means,' " Andrew's mother, Angel Hilliard, said of the name. "He said, 'Well, I'll sleep on it and I'll let you know in the morning.' "
Though Kobe and the naming contest have attracted a lot of attention, zoo births are not unusual at Roger Williams. Jack Mulvena, the executive director of the Rhode Island Zoological Society, said babies have recently been born to the cuvee gazelles and the small monkeys called cotton-top tamarins.
"But the polar bear is one of the most popular exhibits and are among the most popular animals here," Mulvena said. Kobe is credited with helping attract mammoth crowds -- during April's school vacation week, 51,000 people visited the zoo.
The last baby polar bear born at the zoo, Triton, attracted more than 20,000 name entries after he arrived in 1997. He now lives at the Detroit Zoo.
Triton's and Kobe's parents, Trixie and Norton, are named after a couple in the classic television series
The Honeymooners.
Trixie and Norton came to the zoo in 1988, and as Mayor Cianci put it: "They've been on a honeymoon ever since."
"We're a zoo that breeds endangered species," Cianci told the crowd. "You get picked to be a zoo to do that only when you're one of the top ones around."
A naming committee that included representatives from the Rhode Island Foundation, the zoo, the parks and others, selected Kobe after winnowing the list of 3,000 entries to 35. While there were plenty of Andys and Angels and Frostys and Freezes, and even a Koby, there was just one Kobe, King of Bears Everywhere.
Ronnie Martini, one of the judges and the zoo's polar bear keeper, especially liked Kobe because it reminded him of a woman he studied with at Michigan State. Kobe DeLange, he said, was from South Africa: "She was a fun person and a great person."
By striking coincidence, he said his second-favorite name, Nortie, was submitted by Angel Hilliard.
After the ceremony, Andrew was keen to see the newly named cub. But this won't be his only chance. As the contest winner, he received a $500 savings bond from Fleet Bank and a one-year family membership to the zoo. He also received toy stuffed polar bears.
And what if the littlest could be the biggest? Kobe could be -- she is expected to reach 600 pounds. As for Andrew, asked what he would do if he could do whatever he wanted, he didn't hesitate.
"Have a dog and a cat," he said.
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