Pioneering Botanist Plants Seeds for KQED and KTEH Cranford

visions Financial and Estate Planning Ideas for Friends of Northern California Public Broadcasting

SPRING IN VISIONS Pioneering botanist benefits Eight Ways to a Better Program Notes 2008 KQED and KTEH Estate Plan

Emily Hamilton in the film, Personal Spectator, on ImageMakers, airing in July.

Pioneering Botanist Plants Seeds for KQED and KTEH

Last fall KQED and KTEH — along settled in San Jose, near Mark’s family home, with other public broadcasters and charities and started their own family. While raising — received a bequest from long-time their two children, Thomas and Marcia, member Natalie Ames Hopkins. Natalie’s Natalie also volunteered in social work and daughter, Marcia Hopkins, says that her on boards of an orphanage and other youth Photo: ©Nick Briggs/ mother was “a wonderful, caring, compas- service organizations. Tom remembers BBC 2007 for sionate person. She felt that since she was hearing his mother fundraising on the MASTERPIECE lucky enough to have some money, she phone after dinner. would like to share it with others.” Her The family vacationed in California’s Masterpiece: bequests were typical of the person who coastal mountains, on its seashores, and in gave herself to scientific inquiry, her family, the Sierra Nevada, and Natalie cultivated and people less fortunate than her. a deep interest in the natural world. In the Cranford Natalie Hopkins was born in Wellesley, mid-1960s, when Tom and Marcia were in If you can’t get enough of Judi Massachusetts in 1919, one of four sisters. college, Natalie went back to school and Dench on As Time Goes By, if you Her father, a Yale-educated social worker and started her second career. She enrolled at miss seeing Michael Gambon on Inspector Maigret, catch Cranford headmaster of a school for low-income boys, San Jose State University for a second on KQED TV in May. A sleepy was Natalie’s mentor and role model. bachelor’s degree, this time in botany, 1840s English village comes to Natalie graduated from Oberlin College in followed by a master’s degree in biology. life with gossip, parties, 1940 with a B.A. in English Literature, and, The Canadian Journal of Botany romances, sudden death, and soon after, married Mark Hopkins. After published Natalie’s master’s thesis, a bankruptcy in the three-part Cranford, based on the Victorian- Mark’s service in the European theater of pioneering study of mycorrihizae in a era writings of Elizabeth Gaskell. World War II as a B-26 navigator, they plantain native to California’s Santa Cruz The all-star cast also includes Mountains. (A mycorrhiza is the mutually Eileen Atkins, Francesca Annis, beneficial association occurring between and Imelda Staunton. plant roots and a soil fungus.) Carol Selter, a friend, colleague, and former classmate at San Jose State, says that Natalie was deeply interested in evolution and was “an early adopter of the idea that competition is not the only force driving nature and that continued on page 3

Natalie Hopkins, center, with son, Tom, at left 4 1 NATURE: Prince of the Alps High in the Austrian Alps, a female red deer and her calf are at the center of a wilderness story about mountain wildlife and the natural and human threats to their survival. This new episode of NATURE airs on KQED TV on May 11 at 8 p.m.

Red deer calf, approximately two weeks old. Photo: ©Otmar Penker

Lock in Current Generous Annuity Rates Eight Ways to a Better Estate Plan You can make a gift using cash, If you haven’t already done so, today is 3. Name a Power of Attorney stock, or mutual funds valued at a good day to begin planning your estate. $10,000 or more. Your gift will Assign someone to act for you in the event bring you income for life and may Planning your estate will give you control that you become unable to handle your benefit you by reducing your of your property’s ultimate disposition. financial affairs yourself. A durable power taxes. It will also support public Moreover, careful planning can help you of attorney can also provide for property broadcasting. Annuity rates will avoid estate taxes, which for some may be management and disposition rights. decrease slightly on July 1. You as high as 45 percent. Here are some tips for can take advantage of our current generous rates by establishing proper estate planning. 4. Create an Advance Health your gift annuity now. Care Directive 1. Prepare or Update Your Will or Draft an advance health care directive Living Trust Some Sample Current (living will) that makes known your wishes As the basis for distributing the majority Rates l Spring 2008 regarding extraordinary measures for of your assets, your will or trust is the most keeping you alive. An advance health care Your Age Annuity Rate important component of your estate plan. directive gives family members and doctors 65 6.0% You should review your estate plan every the necessary information and authoriza- 75 7.1% three to five years and also after times of tion to make decisions about your care 85 9.5% personal change, such as marriage, divorce, when you are unable to communicate your 90 and over 11.3% birth, adoption, death of an heir, wishes. You will also help your family by Your Ages annuity inheritance, or a move to another state. informing them in advance of your wishes. (couples) rate Tax laws also change often and may alter 67/65 5.7% the effectiveness of your current estate 5. Check Up on Insurance 75/73 6.2% plan. For example, the tax-sheltered estate Periodically evaluate your insurance to 85/83 7.6% amount is scheduled to increase from make sure that you have enough to cover 95/95 and over 11.1% $2,000,000 to $3,500,000 in 2009. changing needs and that your life insurance Current law (as of this writing) provides beneficiary designations are up to date. Donor(s) for a one-year repeal of the estate tax in 2010, reverting to a $1,000,000 shelter in 6. Watch Your Investments 2011. Given the intricacies of tax law and Commit to learning more about the uncertainties of future tax legislation, investments, and make sure your portfolio 2 1 obtaining professional advice will help is appropriately balanced and that your Income tax Gift of ensure that you have an effective investments are properly managed. In deduction & property estate plan. addition, make sure that you have set aside fixed income enough in your retirement plan to take care 2. Choose an Executor Charitable of your future needs. Your finances are your Gift Annuity or Trustee future, and the more you learn, the easier Carefully consider the individual or and more interesting investing becomes. institution you name to act as your Keep in mind that if you have other assets 3 executor or trustee, who will bear the to leave your heirs, unused retirement plan responsibility of carrying out your wishes. Remainder benefits will bring more benefit to charities. to NCPB You will want to name someone you trust This is because, when left to heirs, they implicitly and who is qualified to act. You may be doubly taxed as ordinary income might consider naming a family member and as part of your estate. On the other or close friend, along with a qualified NCPB financial institution. continued on page 4 2 3 Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! Wins Peabody Award In April Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, the popular NPR news quiz show, was named a winner of the 67th Annual George Foster Peabody Awards. “We are delighted that the Peabody Awards committee, long known for recognizing excellence and achievement in broadcast media, has finally decided to reward something else,” said host Peter Sagal. “We are thrilled and grateful … and with this kind of encouragement will probably behave even worse in the future.” The announcement was made on April 2, the birthday of NPR newscaster Carl Kasell, who serves as the show’s official judge and scorekeeper and whose voice is behind the coveted quiz prize: a custom recorded greeting from Kasell for the winner’s answering machine. Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! airs on KQED Radio on Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. Carl Kasell photo: Antony Nagelmann 2001

Recent Endowment Gifts Welcome to New Legacy Society KQED and KTEH are grateful for the more Miles Bohm Auer Estate • Ruth L. Bittman Members than $630,000 from 21 estates it received in Revocable Living Trust • Charlotte Black The Jonathan C. Rice Legacy 2007. These far-sighted donors — many of Charitable Gift Annuity • Bernice Canata Society honors those who have whom were KQED and/or KTEH members Trust • Harry S. Exline Trust and Estate of the vision to provide for KQED’s and KTEH’s future with a for decades — made legacy gifts in amounts Harry S. Exline • Estate of Catherine Mary planned testamentary gift. ranging from $1,000 to over $170,000. Godman • Ethel Golder Trust • Arthur S. The following people became Unless otherwise designated, all legacy gifts Gray Jr. Revocable Living Trust • Edward R. Legacy Society members are added to the Northern California Public Haldan Charitable Gift Annuity • Maida in 2007. Broadcasting Endowment. KQED and Hart Trust • Louis Heilbron Revocable Trust KTEH also received outright Endowment • Helen Hipshman Trust • Hopkins Trust • Anonymous (19) Betty P. Bass gifts from the Hurlbut-Johnson Charitable Estate of Drake Prentiss • Margaret Purvine Gregg Cook and Victor Rosario Lead Trusts, Loretta Mak, and the Edwin Irrevocable Trust • Mary S. Roy Charitable George and Susan Crow A. Seipp, Jr. Fund. Remainder Trust • Lloyd B. Ryland Trust • Sharon D. Dirnberger Robert A. Soderman Charitable Remainder Kenneth J. Duchscherer Trust • Estate of Vera Schoenbein Lillian Grob Charles E. Halfmann Jeff Justice Virginia and Douglas Levick Pioneering Botanist Plants Seeds for KQED and KTEH (continued from page 1) Frances M. McGriff Shirley and Farrel Schell symbiosis and cooperation also serve as plants collection. David K. Sweet Michael A. Taber drivers in forming natural communities.” Natalie moved to Santa Cruz in 1993, Carol Weisner and Keith Gorlen As a volunteer at San Jose State’s the year she became a KQED member. Since Tim M. Whalen Sharsmith Herbarium, Natalie led efforts to Santa Cruz had less access to public broad- Patricia F. Winter digitally catalog its 15,000 plant-specimen casting than San Jose, she appreciated being Jenna Yamamoto sheets for public internet access, thereby able to receive both KQED and KTEH. Flora O. Zagorites greatly advancing and spreading knowledge (She later became a KTEH member, as about native California plants. Although well.) The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was a Natalie was by no means a great techno- favorite program. Tom says that KQED was Monthly Planning Tips phile, she recognized that computers and often on at home. Would you like to learn how to make ultimately the internet would allow botanists More than a pioneering botanist, Natalie the most of your gifts to KQED and KTEH? Visit our Web site at to locate specimens they could borrow for also played violin and loved symphony and www.rrnew.com/kqedtips/ppi.html their research. She also served as a major chamber music, as well as music from non- for useful financial planning tips. volunteer in the project to publish the first classical traditions, including Celtic music You can also sign up there to receive edition of The Jepson Manual. Natalie and American folk. After her husband’s monthly updates by e-mail. helped start the Santa Clara Valley chapter death, Natalie and the two feral cats she of the California Native Plant Society and rescued from the woods behind her Santa Neither the authors, the publishers, nor this became its second president, also serving as Cruz home moved to Pacific Grove, where organization is engaged in rendering legal or tax advisory services. For advice and assistance in a director of the state organization, as well as she enjoyed hiking and birding. She had a specific cases, the services of an attorney or other professional advisor should be obtained. The a curator of the herbarium until her retire- cabin in the northern Sierra, which became purpose of this publication is to provide accurate information of a general character only. Watch for ment in 2000. In addition, as a docent at her favorite place in later years. tax revisions. State laws govern wills, trusts, and charitable gifts made in a contractual agreement. Point Lobos State Reserve, Natalie helped When remembering Natalie, her friend Advice from legal counsel should be sought when reestablish its herbarium and native and fellow California Native Plant Society considering these types of gifts. © 2008, Northern California Public Broadcasting, Inc. Portions of this publication reprinted with permission of The continued on page 4 Stelter Company. 2 3 visions Independent Film and Video on KQED and KTEH Did you know that KQED and KTEH together air more

Senior Director, works by independent filmmakers than any other public Gift Planning and Endowment broadcaster? KQED and KTEH are your source for the Earl Blauner latest in award-winning, local, national, and international independent film and video. Dedicated to highlighting Editor voices seldom heard in the mass media, video i, airing Karen Marek weekly on KTEH, showcases documentaries, narratives,

Art Direction and Design short films and experimental video.ImageMakers , KQED’s NCPB Design weekly series showcasing short films by the moviemakers of tomorrow, gives viewers a first look at short narrative works from around the world. ImageMakers, which can also be seen on KTEH TV, brings to the small screen some of the most creative comedies, cutting-edge animations, Northern California Public Broadcasting intense thrillers and gripping dramas produced today.

P U B L I C T E L E V I S I O N P U B L I C R A D I O I N T E R A C T I V E E D U C AT I O N N E T W O R K Emily Hamilton in the film, Personal Spectator, on ImageMakers, airing in July.

For more Pioneering Botanist Plants Seeds for KQED and KTEH (continued from page 3) information member, Suzanne Schettler, described her through her estate plan. With her bequests, Mail the enclosed confidential reply as “plucky and forward-thinking beneath a the student of symbiotic relations planted card today to request information native New England reserve, with a gracious seeds, leaving her community and future about how you can include KQED ability to implement talent and conviction.” generations of Northern Californians a or KTEH in your estate plan, or Tom Hopkins says that although his mother legacy of outstanding public broadcasting for more information about a showed a certain reserve characteristic of programs and services. charitable gift annuity with NCPB. We will also send you our Legacy many from her generation, she never met Portions of this article were reprinted, with Gift brochure. a person she didn’t like. Carol Selter permission, from Schettler, Suzanne, 2007, remembers that Natalie “stayed beautiful “In Memoriam: Natalie Hopkins,” Fremontia, 35(3):24; and Center for Biological Diversity, Endangered Earth. Or call 415.553.2230 or and interested in life and other people and 408.379.5400 to request this what was going on right until the end.” or other information. Natalie’s interest in “what was going on” If you prefer, you may write to: led her to support KQED and KTEH

Earl Blauner Senior Director Gift Planning and Endowment Eight Ways to a Better Estate Plan (continued from page 2) NCPB, Inc. hand, since non-profit organizations like 2601 Mariposa Street 8. Be Charitable San Francisco, CA 94110-1426 KQED and KTEH do not have to pay An unlimited amount of money can be these taxes, unused retirement plan benefits given to a qualified charitable organization Fax: 415.553.2174 can make excellent charitable bequests. [email protected] like KQED or KTEH during your lifetime [email protected] or through your will or trust, free of federal www.kqed.org/giftplanning 7. Make a Gift to Loved Ones gift and estate taxes. Charitable gifts form www.kteh.org/support In addition to the estate tax exemption, an important component of any estate plan which currently allows you to leave an estate and may be especially helpful for people worth up to $2 million without paying who have no heirs to consider when federal estate taxes, you can reduce any distributing their estate. Through gifts to estate taxes by taking advantage of the KTEH and KQED, you can reduce your annual gift exclusion. This exclusion allows taxable estate. Perhaps more importantly, you to give up to $12,000 to any number you will have the gratifying knowledge that of individuals each year without the gift your gift will support the programs and becoming subject to gift tax. Spouses can services our stations bring to the people of combine their annual exclusion and give Northern California and beyond. $24,000 per year to any number of individuals. (Again, it is important to confirm current tax law with your attorney.)

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