Starkist Tuna Heir Dies at 92


Roanoke Times & World News
June 30, 2008 - By Los Angeles Times

Katherine Bogdanovich Loker, an heir to the StarKist tuna fortune and a major philanthropist in Southern California, died Thursday at her Oceanside, Calif., home of complications of a stroke, according to a spokesman for the University of Southern California, her alma mater. She was 92.

Loker and her late husband, Donald, donated more than $30 million to USC. In 1977, they gave $15 million to establish USC's Hydrocarbon Research Institute. She also funded the $3.4 million Katherine B. Loker Track and Field Stadium and a $1.5 million acting fellowship to the USC School of Theatre.

She donated $7 million to the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., for a 47,000-square-foot addition that re-created the East Room of the White House.

Harvard University, her husband's alma mater, also benefited from her donations. She gave nearly $30 million to the school.

Katherine Bogdanovich was born in 1915 in San Pedro, a Los Angeles neighborhood, to Yugoslavian immigrants. Her father, Martin, was a tuna fisherman who founded what became StarKist Foods, one of the world's largest tuna fishing and canning operations.

She attended USC, receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1940 and participating in track and field.

After graduating, she married her husband, who had a Hollywood acting career using the stage name Don Terry. He left acting to work for StarKist, rising to vice president of the company. He died in 1988.

(c) 2008 Roanoke Times & World News. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.



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