Harland Sanders, US, Entrepreneur June 18. Harland Sanders. Harland

Harland Sanders, US, Entrepreneur June 18. Harland Sanders. Harland started his business career in a questionable neighborhood known as Hell’s Half-Acre. He owned a Shell gas station, and he wheeled out an old dining table to feed homemade ham and steak dinners to truck drivers. He was hard-working, hard-driving, and hotheaded, and he never backed down from a fight. Most people know Harland Sanders as Colonel Sanders of KFC fame, but today’s story starts out when he was a young man trying to get a toehold. When hard things happen, some men get angry. Some men get to work. The story starts back in the day—way before Kentucky Fried Chicken—when Colonel Sanders owned a gas station, and being type A all-the-way, he painted a zillion ads on billboards throughout the area. Of course, competitors took exception to Harland’s campaign, and one named Matt Stewart got himself a ladder and started painting out the signs. It was a tight community, and when Harland heard what Matt was doing, he grabbed a couple Shell Oil executives and raced over to stop him. The car skidded to a stop, and Harland and the two oil guys jumped out. Matt dropped his paintbrush, pulled a gun, and fired. But Harland’s aim was better. He fired and hit the reckless painter. Twice. “Don’t shoot, Sanders,” Matt said. “You’ve killed me.” Turns out Matt lived, and Harland was charged with attempted murder, but those charges were dropped. After that harrowing incident Harland changed, but not enough. He owned the Shell station, a hotel, and a restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky. He tried many different things, including correspondence-school lawyering and worked hard a lot of years. The businesses in Corbin did well. Then—through no fault of his—reality barged in and ruined Harland’s retirement. The interstate diverted traffic seven miles away from his businesses—a death sentence for a business like his. Facing bankruptcy, Harland sold his businesses at auction for a loss to pay the bills and taxes. Left at age 65 with only a $105-per-month Social Security check, Harland had an idea. And a recipe. Few people thought he could be successful, and some thought he was finished before he had started. Willing to risk to succeed, he put his wife and his pressure cookers into his car. And he franchised his eleven-herbs-and-spices formula to restaurant owners, who agreed to sell chicken dinners made according to his specifications. And a nickel for each chicken soon added up. “Don’t quit at age 65,” Harland said. “Maybe your boat hasn’t come in yet. Mine hadn’t.” He decided he could do one of two things. “Feed the poor and get rich, or feed the rich and get poor.” But money didn’t satisfy the Colonel. Harland knew he needed to change. He wanted to change. He tried to change. Finally, he realized he couldn’t change himself. “I knew I should have [Jesus]. I knew I should walk with him [but] I couldn’t reach him [because of] my sinfulness. I used to curse terrible, did since boyhood. I wanted to quit for years and years, but I couldn’t. [I realized] you’ve got to get God in your heart, and you’ve got to get in his heart, too.” Harland decided it was never too late to change. He accepted God’s forgiveness. Not long before his death he said that salvation became the greatest experience of his eighty-nine years. But he wanted to do more than change his own life. He sold Kentucky Fried Chicken for $500,000 and paid his first tithe. He gave the Canadian operations to the Harland Sanders Charitable Foundation to fund thousands of scholarships. “That’s where the Lord has saved me, I think, for that kind of a deal… to do something for him.” Harland made a fortune and gave away millions. “No use being the richest man in the cemetery ’cause you can’t do any business in there.” “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him” (2 Corinthians 5:16–18 NLT). Do you think it’s too late? When hard things happen, some men get angry. Some men get to work. Damn Interesting. “Colonels of Truth.” Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.damninteresting.com/colonels-of- truth/. Gavaris, Dean. “Christian testimony of Col Sanders of KFC fame.” 1979. Accessed May 8, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tP74faK6u8. .

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