Colonel Sanders:

Harland David Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980), was an American entrepreneur who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). His image is omnipresent in the chain's advertising and packaging, and his name is sometimes used as a synonym for the KFC product or restaurant itself.

Early life and career

Sanders was born in Henryville, Indiana. His father died when he was five years old, and since his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family. He dropped out of school in seventh grade. When his mother remarried he ran away from home because his new father beat him. During his early years, Sanders worked many jobs, including steamboat driver, insurance salesman, railroad fireman, farmer, and enlisted in the Army as a private when he was only 16 years old (by lying about his age), spending his entire service commitment in Cuba.

At the age of 40, Sanders cooked chicken dishes and other meals for people who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. Since he did not have a restaurant, he served customers in his living quarters in the service station. Eventually, his local popularity grew, and Sanders moved to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people and worked as the chef. Over the next nine years, he perfected his method of cooking chicken. Furthermore, he made use of a pressure fryer that allowed the chicken to be cooked much faster than by pan-frying.

He was given the honorary title "Kentucky Colonel" in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon. Sanders chose to call himself "Colonel" and to dress in a stereotypical "Southern gentleman" style as a way of self-promotion.

After the construction of Interstate 75 reduced his restaurant's customer traffic, Sanders took to franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, starting at age 65, using $105.00 from his first Social Security check to fund visits to potential franchisees. ^[3]

Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation, in 1964, for $2,000,000 to a pair of Kentucky businessmen. The deal did not include the Canadian operations, where Sanders continued to collect franchise fees. In 1973 he sued Heublein Inc. (the KFC parent company at the time) over alleged misuse of his image in promoting products he had not helped develop. In 1975 Heublein Inc. unsuccessfully sued Sanders for libel after he publicly referred to their gravy as "sludge" with a "wallpaper taste". ^[4]

In 1965 Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario to oversee his Canadian franchises. Sanders later used his shares to create the Colonel Harland Sanders Trust and Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization, which used the proceeds to aid charities and fund scholarships. The Colonel continued on with Kentucky Fried Chicken as its spokesperson and collected appearance fees for his visits to franchises in the United States and Canada. 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.^[5]

Death and legacy

Sanders died in Louisville, Kentucky, of pneumonia on December 16, 1980.^[6]^[7] 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 the Southern 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, Kentucky.

He had a son, Harland, Jr., who died at a young age, and two daughters, Margaret Sanders and Mildred Ruggles.^[8]

Since his death, Colonel Sanders has been portrayed by voice actors in Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials on the radio, and an animated version of him has been used for television commercials (voiced by actor Randy Quaid).

The Colonel's secret flavor recipe of 11 herbs and spices that creates the famous "finger lickin' good" chicken remains a trade secret.^[9] Portions of the secret spice mix are made at different locations in the United States, and the only complete copy of the recipe was formerly kept in a vault in corporate headquarters.^[10] On September 9, 2008, the one complete copy was temporarily moved to an undisclosed location under extremely tight security while KFC revamped the security at its corporate headquarters. Before the temporary move, KFC disclosed the following details about the recipe and its security arrangements:^[11]

References

^ ^a ^b Colonel Sanders. www.nndb.com
^ "Harlan Sander's Family Tree". www.genealogy.com.
^ I've Got A Secret interview, originally broadcast April 6, 1964 (rebroadcast by GSN March 30, 2008).
^ Kleber, John E.; Thomas D. Clark, Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter (June 1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia, University Press of Kentucky. pp.796. ISBN 0-81311-772-0.
^ http://www.trilliumhealthcentre.org/about/mississauga.html
^ "Milestones". Time (1980-12-29). Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
^ "Col. Sanders, 90, Dies of Pneumonia", The Washington Post (1980-12-17). Retrieved on 18 May 2008.
^ ^a ^b Edith Evans Asbury (1980-12-17). "Col. Harland Sanders, Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dies: [Obituary]", The New York Times, p. A33. Retrieved on 19 May 2008.
^ Andrew Shanahan (2005-10-28). "Anatomy of a dish:KFC Family Feast - eight pieces of chicken(known as the "finger lickin chicken"), four regular fries, gravy and corn cobettes, £9.99", the Guardian. Retrieved on 17 January 2008.
^ According to a profile of KFC done by the Food Network television show Unwrapped.
^ Schreiner, Bruce, Associated Press (2008-09-09). "KFC shoring up security for secret recipe", Yahoo! News. Retrieved on 21 September 2008.

Colonel Sanders

Contents

Early life and career

Death and legacy

References

Further reading

External links

Multimedia