'This is Your Life' gala honors Harman's 50th

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 16, 1991 by Alan Liddle

The two men spent considerable time trying to figure out what to put on the sign, Harman said, until they resolved the dilemma with the following exchange: "I said, |It's Col. Sanders' [recipe] from Kentucky and, to me, Kentucky means Southern hospitality and good food . . . and he said, Why don't you call it Kentucky Fried Chicken?'"

The other phrase associated with KFC's fried chicken, at least in the past, "It's Finger lickin' good," also has a Harman tie-in. The term was coined in the '50s by an employee of Pete Harman's brother, Dave, who was a KFC franchisee in Arizona.

His brother so loved to star in his own TV commercials, Harman explained, that he figured out a way to continue doing so even after suffering a stroke that impaired his speech. After the stroke, he said, his brother would sit in camera view, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken while an employee read the ad copy.

"Well, one day a woman calls my brother's manager and said, |That's awfully sloppy the way that man eats. It looks like he is licking his fingers,' and the manager says, |That's because it's finger licking good chicken,'" Harman said of the origin of the phrase, which the family later trademarked.

PHOTO : Pete and Arline Harman received many congratulatory letters from friends and associates, even Ronald and Nancy Reagan.