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Luminaries of Dayton: Harold K. Omer

October 13, 2018 By Angie Hoschouer

L to R: Harold Omer, Ray Danner and Lee Cummings. Danner was the owner of Shoney’s, which at the time owned the Famous Recipe franchise.

The founding of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken.

Lee Cummings, the nephew of Colonel Harland Sanders, spent his childhood in the kitchen of his Henryville, Indiana home. Lee hit the road with his Uncle Harland in 1952, selling their own special blend of spices along with their famous pressure cookers, which later became part of KFC’s “secret Recipe”. In three years, Lee and the Colonel opened over 800 KFC stores. In 1962, the Colonel sold KFC to John Y. Brown.

After the sale of KFC, Lee Cummings started developing his recipe later to be known as “Famous Recipe.” In 1966, Lee along with Harold Omer started “Harold’s Take-Home” in Lima, Ohio where Lee first introduced Famous Recipe Chicken.

By 1967, Lee and Bob Burick in Springfield, Ohio opened the fifth franchise store. Later that year, stores followed in Dayton and Cincinnati as well as in Michigan.

In 1972, Famous Recipe had 100 stores and by 1979 the number had doubled to 200. In 1981, Lee Cummings sold the chain to Shoney’s Restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee and in 1995, it was sold to RTM Restaurant Group in Atlanta, Georgia.

Locally, there are two major franchisees in the Miami Valley that keep the tradition of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken in the community.

Harold Omer was also a manager of aerospace engineering at Lima’s Westinghouse plant. Sometimes he would leave the office and go straight to his second job of frying chicken.

Harold K. Omer died in 1999. He is located in Section 100 of the Woodland Mausoleum.

Filed Under: Active Living, Community, Dayton Entrepreneurs, Dayton History, Downtown Dayton, The Featured Articles Tagged With: Dayton Ohio, DaytonDining, Downtown Dayton, Food Adventures, Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken, Things to do in Dayton, Woodland Cemetery

About Angie Hoschouer

Angie Hoschouer is the Manager of Development and Marketing at Woodland Cemetery, Arboretum and Foundation. She went to Woodland with a history of managing multiple fundraising projects in the non-profit sector and coordinating many of Dayton’s largest attended special events and programs. She was a seven year volunteer before becoming employed at Woodland working in several areas including marketing, historical research and actor portrayal. Angie's great-great-great grandparents were buried at Woodland Cemetery in 1858 and 1867.

Angie has an extensive background in genealogical research and has traced her biological family back to the 1700s in Ireland. She has been interested in not only Dayton’s history but her own and is a founding and lifetime member of the Randolph Twp. Historical Society, a member of the Ohio Genealogical Society with status as a First Family of Ohio, First Family of Greene County and a member of the Society of Civil War Families of Ohio.

Angie can be found giving tours at Woodland, presentations at your local library, speaking engagements at local service clubs and community groups and moderating classes for UD's OLLI program.


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