Human obituaries
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:
Frank Perdue, 84, died on March 31 at
home in Salisbury, Maryland. His father,
Arthur Perdue, started an egg farm in the year
that Frank Perdue was born. After leukosis
killed their 2,000 leghorns in the early 1940s,
they switched to raising broiler hens, began
developing factory-style protection methods, and
prospered during the World War II meat shortage.
Frank Perdue took over the $6 million a year
business in 1952. Annual revenues were up to $56
million in 1970, when Perdue introduced the
Perdue Farms brand name to supermarkets,
appearing in approximately 200 TV commercials
during the next 24 years to promote it. By 1991
Perdue Farms was the third largest poultry firm
in the U.S., worth $1.2 billion a year. In
April 1997, Animal Rights International founder
Henry Spira asked Perdue to lead the way in
reducing the suffering to poultry that results
from factory farming. After Perdue ignored
repeated requests from Spira, Spira in October