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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-12-05, Page 29 (2)PORTRAIT OF A LEGEND so 41 Colonel Harland Sanders, who just celebrated his 89th birthday September 9th. 1979, was raised in Corbin, Ken- tucky. where his father died when he was still very young and Harland, being the oldest son, had to help his mother "bring home the bacon" as he calls it. He, therefore. got himself a job on a farm for two dollars a month plus keep, which in those days was pretty good. For some reason. Harland got fired and got such a tongue lash from his mother, that he made up his mind right then and there to, whatever might ever happen, never be fired again. He was really mad with himself because his mother needed him so badly and yet, he had let her down. He decided that whatever he would do in the future. he would do the best of his ability. He dropped out of school in Grade seven and got himself a job as a carriage painter. This was not his type of meat though and so, after a little while, he landed himself a job as a streetcar con- ductor. This gave him a little more freedom but seemingly not enough, and next he took on a job in the army, where he helped build the railroads. As if that job wasn't hard enough, his next job was that of a fireman on a locomotive of the North -Alabama railroad line. where he shovelled coal for a number of years. But after a while that didn't suit him either. so he became a Justice of the Peace. After that he was an insurance salesman. a ferryboat operator, a midwife and in his spare time he studied law. That didn't suit him either though, so he took on a job as a salesman for a tire company. Naturally, he made a lot of contacts in this new job with service sta- tion operators and before he knew it, he quit his job as salesman and opened up his own gas station on the outskirts of Corbin in Southeastern Kentucky. He had two gas pumps in front of his home, and since he always had a smile for everyone. he soon built up a nice little business. Always alert. he noticed that a lot of peo- ple would ask him where there was a good place to eat and he always sent them to wherever he thought there was a good place, until one day he woke up to the fact. and realized that he could make himself a dollar or two by serving food. So, he took a table and a couple of .chairs out of his living room, put them into his service station and served dinner "Family Style" as he called it. His wife would do the cooking and if it happened that nobody would show up for dinner. the family would eat it. Everything was coming along real well and the place became busier all the time, which meant expansion. The restaurant was enlarged and, in time, with more ad- ditions. became a full fledged restaurant which could seat 142 people. For some reason, Harland Sanders always had a liking for chicken. He was always experimenting with it, and each time he would come up with new, im- proved recipes. He worked with chicken like Thomas Edison worked on the light - bulb, and over a period of 30 years he really got to know the chicken business and. indeed, the chicken he served was different from all other chicken, in par- ticular from what was then called Southern Fried Chicken. He had no use for it and. since everybody else called his • \ \`�" \ �� ~ \mos\„ i N. \�\\: ii u\\\ s\�\\\, ��.\ \\♦ \\4Dt': Z ," .\.:.. \:,„,\.1.\‘:;1:,.:.:.,,,„,.,,,\ .s?N..„s..„,.,:.,:..:,....,:. \ \\\` \, ti \\? )7\\*s . . Goodchichen! Comes To EXETER Friday, December 7th. Colonel Sanders' famous Kentucky Fried Chicken is now within easy reach of the good neighbours of Exeter. Visit our newest location and enjoy that "Finger Lickin' Good” original recipe Seating Capacity for 40 Spotless - all new- Kitchen Facilities Courteous - Friendly Service 227 Main Street, North, EXETER I S Times- Advocate, December 5, 1979 Pato 9A TWINS HISTORY Six tables and six stools - that was the very modest beginning when Barney Strassburger opened his first eating es- tablishment, back in 1947. Located on Number 8 Highway near the Twin Cities of Kitchener -Waterloo. But the eating was good, service was tops and bit by bit the tiny business grew. Then in 1960, Barney teamed up with the internationally famous Colonel Sanders - and the first Kentucky Fried Chicken Store came to the Kitchener area. Today there are 21 TWINS locations - the latest edition - right here in Exeter - all managed by Barney Strassburger and in no small way - Barney Strassburger Jr. Why did Barney Strassburger name his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises "THE TWINS"? In honour of the Twin Cities? Nope! Barney and June are the proud and happy parents of two sets of fraternal twins, born in 1952 and 1959. To show their pride, the parents decided on the name - THE TWINS, since the beginning of Kentucky Fried Chicken was in Kitchener -Waterloo and because of their very own "twins". Since that early date - THE TWINS has been synonymous with the "finger lickin"' ,00dness of their Kentucky Fried Chicken product and now Exeter area residents are invited to enjoy this delicious new eating enjoyment treat. Kentuck9ri�ANY chicken Southern Fried Chicken, he thought he'd be different and name his Kentucky Fried Chicken. Well. after so many years of experimen- ting you are bound to come up with a winner and so it was with Colonel Sanders who, one day, discovered a new spice which he added to eleven different spices and herbs which he was already putting into his breading. Man. did this ever produce a fantastic product. Everybody thought this chicken was out of this world and something very fortunate happened because he got a phone call from someone asking him, if he could serve dinner to a boatload of 500 people who were on their way down the Mississippi River. "Well thought Sanders, "I might as well use these people as guinea pigs because if one of them dies, at least I haven't lost a customer." So he got busy cooking his chicken and when the people arrived, he served them his just perfected Kentucky Fried Chicken. The results were fantastic. Everyone raved so much about it. the enthusiasm was so great, that he decided to stop experimenting and stick to this recipe as his final one. Business kept on booming and now also included a motel. Things were going along just fine. but then something tragic happened. Kentucky Fried elticktn, Colonel Sanders and his bnvs make it finger Iicktn' good" A highway was built similar to the 401 we have around here, and it cut his restaurant right off. Tourists and travellers were now bypassing the town and he was left holding the bag. Things got worse before they got better and the business, valued at 164.000 dollars only a year before, went under. And all that happened when Sanders turned 65 years old! Most men at that age, and under those circumstances. would have been ready to take the gaspipe, but not Colonel Sanders. No, Sir, he got his first old age cheque of 105 dollars and made up his mind to start all over again, once again The Hard Way. He put one of his pressure cookers and his special breading and seasoning in the trunk of his '46 Ford and hit the road try- ing to sell his franchise to other restaurants. He set off for Ohio and Indiana, sleeping on the back seat of his car because he couldn't afford as much as a room in a motel! The going was tough; it was a hard, mean struggle bacause nobody wanted to buy his franchise. He knocked on restaurant after restaurant and got thrown out of them all, because who was he to tell a restauranteur how to fry chicken! He got thrown out of more restaurants that perhaps anyone in history but he didn't give up. WE'RE PROUD TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH BRINGING KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN TO EXETER Arthur J. Brown Limited, Contractor General Contractor Walkerton, Ont. 881-0230 N.C. Jones & Sons Ltd. Exeter 235-0925 Victoria Electric of Kitchener, Ltd. 1 158 Victoria St. N., Kitchener 576-2220 • Commercial • Industrial • Residential H -K Tile Ltd. Home Decorating Centre 382 King St. N., Waterloo 886-3430 C.A. McDowell Ready Mix Ltd. Hwy 83, Exeter 235-0833 Bullas Glass Ltd. 15 Joseph St. Kitchener, 745-1124 Acme Neon Signs (London) Ltd. Thames Rd. W., Exeter 235-0710 Ed Jagelewski Plumbing and Heating RR 4 Walkerton 1 mile E. of Walkerton on Hwy 4. 881-1250 Midwestern Paving 47 Victoria Blvd. Vonastra 482-3733 Nelco Mechanical limited 77 Edwin St., Kitchener 744-6511 • Heating, Air Conditioning and Ventilation BARNEY STRASSBURGER JR ti BARNEY STRASSBURGER One day. he ran into an old friend of his, called Pete Harman, in Salt Lake City. They had known each other for years, and the two of them made a deal, whereby Pete would get the exclusive franchise for the state of Utah, and the Colonel would get a 50,000 dollar bill. They shook hands on the deal and the Colonel was off to the races. Today. Kentucky Fried Chicken is sold in thousands of outlets in the United States, over 600 in Canada as well as hundreds more in England. Spain. Italy, Australia, Mexico. Porto Rico, Austria. Guam. Nassau. the Bahamas. the Phillipines and Africa. In 1964. Colonel Sanders sold his American company for just 2 million dollars and in 1967 he gave away his Canadian Company, which is owned by the Harland Sanders Charitable Founda- tion. It is administered by Canadians and all the profits of Kentucky Fried Chicken Limited in Canada are distributed, in Canada. towards scholarships, churches and charitable organizations, through the Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Foundation. who have donated over 3 million dollars to date. THE COLONEL HARLAND SANDERS . CHARITABLE FOUNDATION The Colonel Harland Sanders Foundation is a non-profit organization - founded ex- clusively in Canada for the benefit of Canadians. It is the profit from each area that is designed to be returned to that district for charitable use. These donations are the profits which normally would have gone back to the United States Corpora- tion. but through the benevolent generosity of Colonel Harland Sanders - these funds are returned to the Canadian Charities as determined by the franchisees in each province. The Twins Kentucky Fried Chicken Stores in this area of South Western On- tario are the licensed franchisees who have determined the contributions to be made to the various Charitable Organization, right around home. You have. no doubt heard of these generous. public spirited donations in Goderich, Hanover, Walkerton and many other regions - and will be hearing more about them in the Exeter area in the years to come.