No money for a bronze Col. Sanders statue? No problem, says PETA: Make it out of chicken feces

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Residents of the tiny town of Corbin, Ky., have a dream: to erect a larger-than-life bronze statue of Corbin’s most famous resident, Col. Harlan Sanders, as a downtown tourist attraction. It’s a story so reminiscent of a Christopher Guest mockumentary -- small town wants to celebrate its storied past and is long on heart but short on funds -- that we half expect a resident to storm out of a City Council meeting shouting something incoherent about biting a pillow.

Corbin residents recently formed a group, Friends of Col. Sanders, which is ‘working toward incorporation and tax-exempt status so it can begin accepting donations for a proposed statue’ of the man behind the famous chicken recipe, Corbin’s Times Tribune newspaper reported.

If the group gets its way, Sanders -- who founded the Corbin restaurant that would become Kentucky Fried Chicken in the 1930s -- would be immortalized in a 10-foot-tall sculpture surrounded by a park. ‘We want to make it a tourism spot where people will come through our Main Street, hopefully stop and check out our town,’ Charlene Blair, a member of Corbin’s Main Street Project design committee, told the Times Tribune. ‘We don’t want it to be just a drive-by.’

But bronze statues and parks cost money, and the way Corbin officials figure it, they won’t have enough to complete their Col. Sanders project for a few years.

In the meantime, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a solution to Corbin’s lack of a KFC-themed tourist attraction, it says: Nix the bronze. Just make the statue out of chicken feces.

In a letter to Corbin’s Main Street Project manager Sharae Myers, PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman states her group’s desire to ‘apply for a permit to place a life-size rendition of Colonel Sanders made entirely of chicken feces in downtown Corbin. PETA’s statue radiates the smell of the crowded, filthy sheds in which chickens are forced to live out their short lives before being killed for KFC’s buckets.’

PETA has long opposed KFC over alleged animal cruelty issues; the animal-rights group even maintains a website, KentuckyFriedCruelty.com, that parodies the fast-food giant and includes details of undercover investigations into the practices of its poultry suppliers. Last week, PETA tried to buy advertising space on fire trucks in Indianapolis after KFC made a similar deal with the city, in which it agreed to pay for firefighting supplies like hydrants and extinguishers, provided the items were emblazoned with the logo for its Fiery Grilled Wings.

Myers, for her part, seems unconcerned with PETA’s proposed ‘public art’ piece. As for the bronze colonel, it’s ‘something that we definitely want to move forward on,’ she told the Times Tribune.

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-- Lindsay Barnett

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