III. Early life Brown was born on December 28, 1933, in Lexington, Kentucky. He was the only son of five children born to John Y. and Dorothy Inman Brown. His father was a member of the U.S. Congress from Kentucky and a member of the Kentucky state legislature for nearly three decades, including a term as Speaker of the House. John Sr. was named for, but not related to, the nineteenth century governor of the same name. A 1979 People magazine article recounts that the elder Brown's nine unsuccessful political races – for either governor or the U.S. Senate – took a toll on his family and left his mother resentful of all the money spent on campaigns. Brown attended Lafayette High School in Lexington, where he was a seventeen-time letterman in various sports. During one summer, his father expressed disappointment that he had decided to spend the summer selling vacuum cleaners instead of working on a road construction crew with the rest of his football teammates. Motivated by his father's disapproval, Brown averaged $1,000 in monthly commissions from vacuum cleaner sales. After high school, Brown matriculated at the University of Kentucky, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1957 and a law degree in 1960. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the golf team and Phi Delta Theta fraternity. While in law school, he made as much as $25,000 a year selling Encyclopædia Britannica sets and employed a sales crew made up of classmates to increase his profits. Brown joined his father's law practice after earning his law degree. From 1959 to 1965, he also served in the United States Army Reserve. He served as legal counsel for Paul Hornung when Hornung was suspended for the 1963 National Football League season for gambling. After only a few years, Brown left his father's law firm and began a career in business. Business ventures In 1960, Brown married Eleanor Bennett Durall and had three children including John Young Brown III, Eleanor Faris, and Sandra Bennett. He got his wife involved in managing a barbecue restaurant; upon seeing its success, he became convinced of the financial potential of the fast food industry. During a 1963 political breakfast, Brown met Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), and the two discussed selling Sanders' chicken in Brown's chain of barbecue restaurants. By 1964, Brown persuaded Jack C. Massey to