Betty White forever stamp is now available: What to know
The U.S. Postal Service hosted a ceremony to celebrate the release of the new Betty White Forever stamp at the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens Thursday.
First announced in February, the new Betty White stamps are now available at USPS locations and online in panes of 20 for $14.60, as the current price of a Forever stamp is $0.73. If the price of Forever stamps go up in the future, the stamps won't expire and will be equal in value to the current price of a 1-ounce piece of first-class mail.
Fans of the late "Golden Girls" star and Dale Stephanos, the artist behind the stamp, gathered along with zoo and community members in an event emceed by Danny Romero, a meteorologist at ABC News' Los Angeles station KABC.
"I wanted Betty's huge personality to take center stage," Stephanos said at the ceremony.
Stephanos recounted how he came to depict White, who sports blonde curls, paw-print earrings and a purple polka-dotted blouse against a violet-colored background in the new stamp.
"I was absentmindedly drawing instead of eating my eggs and looking back down at the mess I had been making in my sketchbook. I saw that at some point, I had drawn a paw print," Stephanos recalled. "I had a bit of a eureka moment and thought, 'What if I just give Betty an earring that's in the shape of a paw print?'"
Known as the "First Lady of Television," White was a passionate animal lover and advocate in addition to being a celebrated actress and entertainer.
She served on the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association's board of trustees as co-chair and was a donor to the zoo as well.
White died of natural causes on Dec. 31, 2021, at the age of 99, just 17 days before her 100th birthday.
