From morning walks with her dog to nightly PBS NewsHour viewings, LeEllen Haynes weaves public media into her daily life and giving.
Every day, LeEllen Haynes and her rescued Corgi mix Rudy set out for a walk. “I wasn’t getting out, and I knew I would need to walk a dog,” LeEllen said with a smile.
Since retiring from her career as a speech pathologist with Grand Island Public Schools, LeEllen has found that dogs keep her active and connected. Her first companion, a lively Boston Terrier, demanded plenty of exercise – something Rudy happily continues today.
And when the walks are done, another daily ritual begins. “I watch the PBS News Hour every night,” she said. “I listen and watch TV while I do other things around the kitchen.”
LeEllen says about 60 percent of what she watches is public television, noting that her favorites are films by Ken Burns and Masterpiece – particularly All Creatures Great & Small and its focus on animals. She likes the current series better than the original 1970s version.
“The characters are more complex,” she said.
Her car radio is always tuned to public radio. “NPR is on in my car – always. I also think the classical music makes me a better driver,” she chuckled.
LeEllen said she thinks she first supported public media in response to a TV pledge drive she watched long ago. “I probably thought, ‘Wow, these programs are public supported?’” she recalled.
“I started small because I didn’t make much money in the early years, but my support grew.”
Recently, when she needed to meet the requirements for a Required Minimum Distribution from her IRA account, her financial advisor suggested charitable giving. “He said I could avoid paying taxes on that money and, after my church, Nebraska Public Media was at the top of the list of organizations I wanted to support.”
Growing up in O’Neill, Haynes remembers there were just a handful of stations to watch. Later in life, she believes she might have been one of the last holdouts to subscribe to cable television.
“I used my rabbit ears to tune in the networks and discovered there was so much good stuff on PBS,” she said. “I gain so much from the programming and it’s free to everyone. How could I not support it?”