Kfc Founder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Colonel Sanders| | Born| Harland David Sanders September 9, 1890 Henryville, Indiana, U. S. | Died| December 16, 1980  (aged  90) Louisville, Kentucky, U. S. | Cause  of death| Pneumonia| Nationality| American| Education| School dropout[1]| Occupation| Entrepreneur| Board member  of| Kentucky Fried Chicken(founder)| Religion| Disciples of Christ| Spouse(s)| Josephine King (divorced) Claudia Price| Children| Harland David Sanders, Jr. Margaret Sanders Mildred Sanders Ruggles| Parents| Wilbur David Sanders Margaret Ann Sanders  (nee Dunlevy)[2]| Signature| |Colonel[a]  Harland David Sanders  (September 9, 1890  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ December 16, 1980) was anAmerican  businessman and restaurateur who founded the  Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)restaurant chain. Sanders passed through several professions in his lifetime, with mixed success. He first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the  Great Depression  at a  gas station  he owned in  North Corbin, a small city on the edge of the  Appalachian Mountains  in south eastern Kentucky. With a flair for promotion and dedication to providing quality  fast food, Sanders oversaw his franchise in becoming one of the largest in the world.His likeness appears on their boxes to this day, and a stylized graphic of his face is a trademark of the corporation. Contents * 1  Early Life * 2  Early jobs * 3  Career * 4  Death and legacy * 5  Footnotes * 6  Further reading * 7  External links| ————————————————- Early Life Harland Sanders at age 20 Sanders was born on 9 September 1890 in a thin-walled, four room shack on a country road three miles east ofHenryville, Indiana. [3]  He was the oldest of three children born to Wilbur David and Margaret Ann Sanders. 3]Sanders was of Irish descent. [4] Sanders' father was a mild and affectionat e man who tried to make a living as a farmer, but fell and broke his back and a leg and had to give it up. [3]  For two years he worked as a butcher in Henryville. [3]  One afternoon in the summer of 1895 he came home with a fever and died later that day. [3]  Sanders' mother took work in a tomato-canning factory, and the young Harland was required to cook for his family. [3] Sanders dropped out of school when he was 12. [5]  When his mother remarried in 1902 his stepfather beat him.So then, with his mother's approval, he left home to live with his uncle in  Albany. [6] ————————————————- Early jobs Sanders falsified his date of birth and enlisted in the United States Army at the age of fifteen, completing his service commitment as a mule handler in Cuba. [6]  He was honorably discharged after four months and made his way to  Sheffield, Alabama  where an unc le lived. [6]  It so happened that his brother Clarence had also made his way there, in order to avoid his stepfather. 6]  During his early years, Sanders held many jobs, including: steamboat pilot, insurance salesman, railroad fireman and farmer. [7] Sanders married Josephine King in 1908 and started a family, but after his boss fired him for insubordination while he was on a trip, Josephine stopped writing him letters. He then learned that Josephine had left him, given away all their furniture and household goods, and taken the children back to her parents’s home. Josephine ’s brother wrote Sanders a letter saying, â€Å"She had no business marrying a no-good fellow like you who can’t hold a job. He had a son, Harland, Jr. , who died at an early age, and two daughters, Margaret Sanders and Mildred Sanders Ruggles. [8][9] ————————————————- Career Sanders remains the official face of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and appears on its logo The  restaurant  in  Corbin, Kentucky  where Colonel Sanders developed Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Harland Sanders, in character In 1930 Sanders opened a  service station  in  Corbin, Kentucky  where he cooked chicken dishes and other meals such as  country ham  andsteaks  for customers. 10]  Since he did not have a restaurant, he served customers in his adjacent living quarters. His local popularity grew, and Sanders moved to a motel and 142 seat restaurant, later  Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum. Over the next nine years he developed his â€Å"secret recipe† for frying chicken in a  pressure fryerthat cooked the chicken much faster than  pan frying. In 1939 food critic  Duncan Hines  visited Sanders’s restaurant incognito and was so impressed he listed the place in â€Å"Adventures in Good Eating,† his famous guide to restaurants throughou t the US.As his success grew, Sanders played a more active role in civic life, joining the  Rotary Club, the chamber of commerce, and the  Freemasons. [11]  In 1947 he and Josephine divorced, and in 1949 he married his secretary Claudia, as he had long desired. [12]  He was â€Å"re-commissioned† as a Kentucky colonel in 1949 by his friend, Governor  Lawrence Wetherby. [13] Around 1950, Sanders began developing his distinctive appearance, growing his trademark mustache and goatee and donning a white suit and string tie. 13]  He never wore anything else in public during the last 20 years of his life, using a heavy wool suit in the winter and a light cotton suit in the summer. [7]  He bleached his moustache and goatee to match his white hair. [12] At age 65, Sanders' store having failed[7]  due to the new  Interstate 75  reducing his restaurant's customer traffic, he took $105 from his first  Social Security  check and began visiting potential franchisee s. [14] The franchise approach was successful, and less than ten years later (in 1964) Sanders old the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for $2 million to a partnership of Kentucky businessmen headed by  John Y. Brown, Jr. The deal did not include the Canadian operations. In 1965 Sanders moved to  Mississauga,  Ontario  to oversee his Canadian franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees there and appearance fees in the U. S. (He was locally active. For example, his 80th birthday was held at the  Inn on the Park  in  North York, Ontario, hosted by  Jerry Lewis  as a  Canadian Muscular Dystrophy Association  fundraiser. [15]  In September 1970 he and his wife were  baptized  in the  Jordan River. [16]  He befriended  Billy Graham  and  Jerry Falwell. [16] In 1973, he sued  Heublein Inc. — then parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken  Ã¢â‚¬â€ over alleged misuse of his image in promoting products he had not helpe d develop. In 1975, Heublein Inc. unsuccessfully sued Sanders for libel after he publicly described their gravy as â€Å"wallpaper paste† to which â€Å"sludge† was added. [17] ————————————————- Death and legacy Gravesite of Harland Sanders.Sanders later used his stockholdings to create the Colonel Harland Sanders Trust and Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization, which used the proceeds to aid charities and fund scholarships. His trusts continue to donate money to groups like the  Trillium Health Care Centre; a wing of their building specializes in women's and children's care and has been named after him. [18]  The  Sidney, British Columbia  based foundation granted over $1,000,000 in 2007, according to its 2007 tax return. [19] Sanders died at the Jewish Hospital[20]  in  Louisville, Kentucky, of pneumonia on December 16, 1980. 21][22]  He had been diagnosed with acute leukemia the previous June. [8]  His body lay in state in the rotunda of the  Kentucky State Capitol; after a funeral service at theSouthern Baptist Seminary  Chapel attended by more than 1,000 people. He was buried in his characteristic white suit and black western string tie in  Cave Hill Cemetery  in Louisville. Since his death, Sanders has been portrayed by voice actors in Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials in radio and an animated version of him has been used for television commercials.The Japanese  Nippon Professional Baseball  league has developed an  urban legend  of the â€Å"Curse of the Colonel†. A statue of Colonel Sanders was thrown into the river and lost during a 1985 fan celebration, and (according to the legend) the â€Å"curse† has caused Japan'sHanshin Tigers  to perform poorly since the incident. [23] A manuscript of a book on cooking, which Sanders apparently wrote in the mid-1960s, has been fo und in KFC archives. It includes some cooking recipes from Sanders as well as stories. KFC plans to try some of the recipes, and to offer the book online. 24] ————————————————- Footnotes 1. ^  Sanders was given the honorary title â€Å"Kentucky Colonel† in 1935 by  Governor  Ruby Laffoon. 1. ^  Seven World Figures Who Drop Out Of The school, Sevenrare. com. 2. ^  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Harlan Sander's Family Tree†. www. genealogy. com. Retrieved 2009-03-09. 3. ^  a  b  c  d  e  f  The Human Tradition in the New South By James C. Klotter 130 4. ^http://www. kentuckyfriedchicken. com/about/pdf/50th_anniversary. pdf 5. ^  http://www. colonelsanders. com/ 6. ^  a  b  c  d  The Human Tradition in the New South By James C.Klotter 131 7. ^  a  b  c  Ozersky, Josh (2010-09-15). â€Å"KFC's Colonel Sanders: He Was Real, Not Just an Iconâ₠¬ . Time. Retrieved 2010-09-18. 8. ^  a  b  Edith Evans Asbury (1980-12-17). â€Å"Col. Harland Sanders, Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dies: [Obituary]†. The New York Times: p. A33. 9. ^  Josh Kegley,  Daughter of Colonel Sanders dies at age 91,Lexington Herald-Leader, September 25, 2010. 10. ^  KFC. co. uk | About Us | KFC History 11. ^  The Human Tradition in the New South By James C. Klotter 138. 12. ^  a  b  The Human Tradition in the New South By James C. Klotter 142 13.   a  b  Ã¢â‚¬Å"KFC – Colonel Sanders Cafe & Museum – America's First Kentucky Fried Chicken†. Corbinkentucky. us. 1964-02-18. Retrieved 2010-07-30. 14. ^  I've Got A Secret  interview, originally broadcast April 6, 1964 (rebroadcast by GSN March 30, 2008). 15. ^  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Dinner for Col. Sanders†. Toronto Star  (Toronto ON): p. 23. 10 July 1970. 16. ^  a  b  The Human Tradition in the New South By James C. Klotter 153 17. ^  Kleber, John E. ; Thomas D. Clark, Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter (June 1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. University Press of Kentucky. p. 796. ISBN  0-8131-1772-0. 18. ^  Ã¢â‚¬Å"About Us: Tillium Health Center†.Trilliumhealthcentre. org. Retrieved 2010-07-30. 19. ^  Harland Sanders Foundation on the CRA web site 20. ^  Col. Sanders, fried chicken king, dead Chicago Tribune (1963-Current file) [Chicago, Ill] 17 Dec 1980: 5. 21. ^  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Milestones†. Time. 1980-12-29. Retrieved 2008-05-19. 22. ^  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Col. Sanders, 90, Dies of Pneumonia†. The Washington Post. 1980-12-17. 23. ^  White, Paul (2003-08-21). â€Å"The Colonel's curse runs deep†. USA Today. Retrieved 2009-05-28. 24. ^  Schreiner, Bruce (2011-11-10). â€Å"Colonel Sanders harbored more than one secret†. News & Record. Associated Press. Retrieved 2011-11-12.