Success Happy

Is Colonel Sanders a good example of how it's never to late to be a big success in life?

Public Comments

1. YES! 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. 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. 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. 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. Sanders moved to Ontario and continued to collect franchise fees. 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.