Community Chest

In a bleak, barnlike TV studio on the fringes of San Francisco's Skid Row, District Attorney Tom Lynch asked for bids on a rattan duck rising from dried grasses, Columnist Herb ("Mr. San Francisco") Caen tried to peddle the services of a private eye. For five days last week, from midafternoon to midnight, these and a hundred other prominent San Franciscans acted as volunteer auctioneers for some 5,000 items donated by San Francisco merchants or individuals. Occasion: the fourth annual fund-raising auction for San Francisco's KQED-TV, the community-owned educational television station.

Exotic Sale. A poodle went for $175; a pony given by Tennessee Ernie Ford netted $345. Most exotic item was a set of lavender sheets smeared with lipstick, which (the Cliff Hotel swore) had been used by Kim Novak. The sheets were bought by a tie manufacturer for $200, converted into cravats, and reauctioned as neckwear two nights later.

KQED, one of the U.S.'s most dignified stations (TIME, Dec. 31, 1956), is dependent on such undignified auctions and fund drives for almost a third of its $360,000 yearly expenditures. The major slice of its income (about $155,000) comes from the sale of its filmed programs, which are sold to Ann Arbor's Educational Television & Radio Center for nationwide distribution to ETV stations. Most impressive KQED films: Sing Hi, Sing Lo, a history of the U.S. told through folklore and folk song; a series on Japanese brush painting taught by Artist Takahike Mikami: Fallout and Disarmament, an hour-long debate between Scientists Linus Pauling and Edward Teller. KQED's final deficit ($90,000) is made up by a membership drive selling subscriptions from $10 and up that entitle the subscriber to nothing but a sense of community service.

Begun on a shoestring in 1954, KQED was at first limited by lack of cash to a 30-minute program three nights a week. General Manager Jim Day, 39, credits the station's subsequent rise to the do-it-yourself teamwork of the original six-man staff. By 1955, with the helo of a $114,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, KQED was running regular lectures, panel discussions, art shows and live symphonic concerts, kept growing even after the Ford grant ran out.

Civic Pride. Today's KQED's programs include a 30-show series on the U.S. economy, and a twelve-part series on The World and Physics, conducted by Physicist Teller. Each is a high-level professional show, but each is also entertaining. Philosophized Day: "Being high-minded is not enough. This process of discovery that we call education is exciting, and we should make it so." KQED-TV has done just that, and out of gratitude and civic pride, San Francisco's citizens have responded with financial support to help keep it proudly solvent.

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