Today I learned that Harland Sanders was never a military colonel. He never actually served in the military. Instead, Kentucky Governer Ruby Laffoon gave Harland Sanders the title of “Kentucky Colonel” in order to boost his political support. The whole “Colonel Sanders” branding is a sham designed to promote the state of Kentucky.
Disclaimer: I knew nothing about him until this moment other than his image at KFC restaurants.
A short wiki search comes up with Kentucky Colonel which is an order of merit given by the state of Kentucky. This is a real award given by Kentucky, and Sanders legitimately received it.
You didn’t learn anything today.
Huh?
Where’s the conspiracy theory?
A Kentucky colonel is a thing, and it’s been around much longer than Sanders. Nor has it ever been a secret that’s what he was, rather than a military officer.
Or is this a joke post?
If not, I’m really interested in the conspiracy theory because I’ve never run across it at all, despite having seen a lot, including a couple of documentaries and short form videos, about Sanders over the years.
I only heard about the Kentucky Colonel thing today while browsing wikipedia. I thought it was interesting that he was never in the military, and I wanted to post about it. I thought it might be funny to call it a conspiracy theory as a little bit of a prank, but Lemmy users are too smart to fall for My tricks, so I’ve removed the prank from the post.
Gotcha! No worries lol
The whole Kentucky colonel thing is weird as hell tbh. Folks there treat it seriously, but also like a long running joke as well, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if a conspiracy had grown up around it. I’m almost disappointed there wasn’t lol
From Wikipedia
In 1930, the Shell Oil Company offered Sanders a service station in North Corbin, Kentucky, rent-free, in return for paying the company a percentage of sales.
Sanders began to serve chicken dishes and other meals such as country ham and steaks. Initially he served the customers in his adjacent living quarters before opening a restaurant.
It was during this period that Sanders was involved in a shootout with Matt Stewart, a local competitor who had painted over a sign directing traffic to Sanders’s station. Stewart killed a Shell employee who was with Sanders, and was convicted of murder, eliminating Sanders’s competition.
