Heroes, Real And Imagined

A Theme, Says Lloyd de Vries, Dominating The New Crop Of Stamps

(CBS)  Also on the lighter side are two entertainment issues sure to please film aficionados: The 12th Legends of Hollywood stamp subject is Judy Garland, featuring a publicity shot from "A Star Is Born" (1954). The 2006 Black Heritage entry honors actress Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Academy Award (for "Gone With The Wind," 1939). The Postal Service notes that she worked hard to "change the [film] industry from within, as far as the discrimination that African-Americans felt."

Katherine Anne Porter, author of Ship Of Fools, is the Literary Arts subject in 2006. She won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Stories and was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. And she was the great-granddaughter of Daniel Boone!

The year will start off with eight stamps of Favorite Children's Book Animals, a joint issue with Britain and Olympic Winter Games (a skier).

The exact order of next year's stamps is somewhat up in the air, because of a pending rate increase request. Not only does the Postal Service's Stamps Services division not know exactly when the rate increase will go into effect - early January is most likely - the USPS may withdraw the request if it gets the legislative relief on pensions that it has requested.

Other issues slated for 2006 are two new wedding stamps, in one- and two-ounce denominations; The Art of Disney: Romance; boxer Sugar Ray Robinson; Amber Alert; American Motorcycles; Quilts of Gee's Bend; Southern Florida Wetland; Holiday Snowflakes; and a new religious Christmas stamp, based on Chacón's "Madonna and Child with Bird" painting at the Denver Art Museum.