In the late 1960s, Indianapolis formed a committee to bring public television to Central Indiana. Ardath Yates Burkhart was asked to join because, despite nearing the end of the temporary licensing period, the all-male group had been largely unsuccessful in generating the required funding for the FCC license.
Ardath, a tenacious, determined woman with a warm smile and twinkling eyes, was a master fundraiser with deep community connections and a remarkable success record. In fewer than six months, she organized more than 9,000 women – dubbed “Ardath’s Army” – for a weekend, 8-county, door-to-door campaign which raised the 350-thousand dollars necessary to obtain the founding license.
WFYI-TV had its inaugural broadcast in early October 1970, forever altering Central Indiana’s broadcast landscape.
WFYI’s remarkable “founding mother” marshalled these women volunteers, many of whom were young mothers looking for creative, educational children’s programming, most notably at the time Sesame Street, with focus and determination. When it came to fundraising, Ardath didn’t take “no” for an answer.
A 1927 graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, she was a member of its board of trustees. When others had trouble raising the money to save East College, the oldest building on campus which is the university’s logo, Ardath simply said, “Let me see if I can raise some money.” She generated several million for the renovation.
She received an honorary doctorate from DePauw and was the first woman to receive the prestigious alumni award, the “Old Gold Goblet.”
Ardath had a knack for projects large and small and sat on the boards of Wishard Hospital and, later, Methodist Hospital, where a beautiful atrium garden bears her name.
She also led her daughter Gay’s Girl Scout troop. As 8th graders, the girls began planning for a trip to Europe which they took the summer after their junior year.
With Ardath’s encouragement and direction, those 18 Girl Scouts sold cookies and donuts, stuffed envelopes, and made Christmas wreaths, saving up enough over the years to travel by boat to Europe, where they spent nine weeks visiting nine countries.
After WFYI came on air, she established other ongoing fundraising forums including Friends of Channel 20. It was an on-air auction – a week-long telethon, often featuring rollicking fun which kept Channel 20 afloat in the early days by inviting donations of every size and value “from people like you.”
Coming from large families, Ardath’s parents instilled in her old-fashioned values. Her mother, one of 12 children, read the Marie Corelli novel “Ardath,” and liked the name so much she named her daughter after the title character. Her father was one of 14 children and a farmer.
Ardath adopted their wholesome, no-waste lifestyle, personally sewing most of Gay’s wardrobe until Gay got to high school. In all her years of entertaining, Gay shared that Ardath only used a caterer on one occasion; for all other events, she had her go-to recipes that she prepared from scratch…and she never bought pre-cut chicken.
In addition to contributions in the Hoosier state, Ardath Burkhart sat on the national PBS board. She attended her last meeting in early 1983 and passed away later that year at age 78, leaving an indelible mark on Indiana.
