Colonel Sanders

Harland David "Colonel" Sanders
File:Harland Sanders.jpg
Born	(1890-09-09)September 9, 1890 Henryville, Indiana, U.S.
Died	December 16, 1980(1980-12-16) (aged 90) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Spouse(s)	Josephine King (divorced) Claudia Price
Children	Margaret Sanders Brandon Sanders, Grant Sanders Mildred Sanders
Parent(s)	Wilbur David Sanders Margaret Ann Sanders (née Dunlevy)

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 to a Presbyterian family in Henryville, Indiana. His father, Wilbur David Sanders, 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 stepfather beat him. During his early years, Sanders worked many jobs, including steamboat pilot, 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.

File:Sanders 20.png

Harland Sanders at the age 20

The restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky where Colonel Sanders developed Kentucky Fried Chicken

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 developed 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 from his first Social Security check to fund visits to potential franchisees.

Tony Robbins tells his story as a key asset to personal success, since Sanders allegedly had 1,009 rejections when trying to establish his franchise, until he co-founded the now international restaurant chain KFC.

Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1964 for $2 million to a partnership of Kentucky businessmen headed by John Y. Brown, Jr. 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".

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. Sanders 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.

Death and legacy

Gravesite of Sanders

Sanders died in Louisville, Kentucky, of pneumonia on December 16, 1980. He had been diagnosed with acute leukemia the previous June. 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.

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 also appeared, portrayed by drummer Brooks Wackerman, as part of Tenacious D's backing band for their last world tour.

A recording of a terminally ill Colonel Harland Sanders muddling his way through his last Kentucky Fried Chicken Commercial, can be found on the "Brother Russell Podcast" here: http://melba.podbean.com/2007/06/

Colonel Sanders is the official face of KFC, and appears on the logo as well as numerous advertisements and promotions of the fast food chain.

The Colonel's secret flavor recipe of 11 herbs and spices that creates the famous "finger lickin' good" chicken remains a trade secret. 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. 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:

• The recipe, which includes exact amounts of each component, is written in pencil on a single sheet of notebook paper and signed by Sanders.
• The recipe was locked in a filing cabinet with two separate combination locks. The cabinet also included vials of each of the 11 herbs and spices used.
• Only two executives had access to the recipe at any one time. KFC refuses to disclose the names and titles of either executive.
• One of the two executives said that no one had come close to guessing the contents of the secret recipe, and added that the actual recipe would include some surprises.

On February 9, 2009, the secret recipe returned to KFC's Louisville headquarters in a more secure, computerized vault.

The Canadian charitable foundation "Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization Inc." granted over $1,000,000 in 2007, according to its 2007 tax return. The foundation is based in Sidney, British Columbia Check The Harland Sanders Foundation on the CRA web site.

In 1983, writer William Poundstone tackled the recipe in his book Big Secrets. He reviewed Sanders' patent application, and advertised in college newspapers for present or former employees willing to share their knowledge. From the former he deduced that Sanders had diverged from other common fried-chicken recipes by varying the amount of oil used with the amount of chicken being cooked, and starting the cooking at a higher temperature (about 400°F, 200°C) for the first minute or so and then lowering it to 250°F (120°C) for the remainder of the cooking time. Several of Poundstone's contacts also provided samples of the seasoning mix, and a food lab found that it consisted solely of sugar, flour, salt, black pepper and monosodium glutamate (MSG). He concluded that it was entirely possible that, in the years since Sanders sold the chain, later owners had begun skimping on the recipe to save costs. Following his buyout in 1964, Colonel Sanders himself expressed anger at such changes, saying, "That friggin' ... outfit .... They prostituted every goddamn thing I had. I had the greatest gravy in the world and those sons of bitches they dragged it out and extended it and wa­tered it down that I'm so goddamn mad."

External links

• Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Colonel Sanders at Find a Grave
• CBC Archives CBC Radio talks with Colonel Sanders about Canadian food and cooking (from 1957).

Further reading

• Pearce, John, The Colonel (1982) ISBN 0-385-18122-1
• Kleber, John J.; et al. (1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
• Encyclopedia of Kentucky. New York, New York: Somerset Publishers. 1987. pp. 185–186. ISBN 0403099811.