The third Success Story which I would like to share is the story of KFC founder, Harland Sanders. When Sanders was six, his father died. His mother was forced to go to work, and young Sanders had to take care of his three-year-old brother and baby sister. At age 10, he helped support his family by working on a farm. Then, he moved on to become a streetcar conductor while he was still a teenager. From there, Sanders took a job as a fireman on the railroad. He finally ended up operating a restaurant. Sanders utilized the recipes and the cooking skills his mother had taught him to feed hungry travelers. His special meal was, of course, fried chicken. Harland Sanders' cooking was such a hit, and word of his success made its way around the state of Kentucky. His recipes became so famous, in fact, that, in the year of 1935, when Sanders was just forty-five years old, then Governor Ruby Laffoon named him a Kentucky Colonel. However in the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, the Colonel closed his operations and retired. However, the government check was small and Sanders ( at that time in his 60s) wasn't willing to just sit still and try to make due. He believed there was an opportunity to market his chicken to restaurant owners across the U.S. In his travels, he was rejected on many occasions, laughed at about his attire of his starched white shirt and white pants. However, Sanders persevered, and after a little over 1,000 visits, he finally persuaded Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah to partner with him. They launched the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" site in 1952. By 1964, Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada.
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