Colonel Sanders

From Wikipedia




Harland David Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). His image is omnipresent in the chain's advertising and packaging and his name is sometimes used to mean the KFC product or the restaurant.


Early life and career

Sanders was born in Henryville, Indiana. His father died when he was seven years old, and since his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family. He dropped out of school in seventh grade. During his teen years, Sanders worked many jobs, including steamboat driver, insurance salesman, railroad firefighter, farmer, and enlisted in the Army as a private in 1918, although he spent his entire service in Cuba.

At the age of 40, Sanders cooked chicken dishes and others 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" costume as a way of self-promotion.

After the construction of Interstate 75 reduced his restaurant's business, 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.


A KFC restaurant.

Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1964, although he remained its corporate spokesman until his death. In 1971 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".

Death and legacy



Sanders died aged 90, on December 16, 1980. He was buried in his characteristic white suit and black western string tie in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, after a funeral service at the nearby Southern Baptist Seminary Chapel, attended by more than 1,000 people, and lying in state in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol.

He also had two sons, Brandon and Grant, and one daughter named Margaret.

Since his death, an animated version of Colonel Sanders appeared in Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials for both radio and television (voiced by actor Randy Quaid).

The Colonel's secret flavor recipe of 11 herbs and spices that creates the famous "finger lickin' chicken" remains a trade secret. According to a profile of KFC done by the Food Network television show Unwrapped, portions of the secret spice mix are made at different locations in the United States, and the only complete copy of the recipe is kept in a vault in corporate headquarters.