Pamela Anderson Rebuffed On Bust

Kentucky's governor has rejected TV star Pamela Anderson's appeal to pluck a bust of KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders from the state Capitol because she considered it "a monument to cruelty" to chickens.

In a letter to Anderson, who stars in the Fox TV comedy "Stacked," Gov. Ernie Fletcher said he has no intention of removing the Sanders bust from the statehouse.

"We have no plans to remove or change anything about the display," Fletcher said in the letter sent Friday. "Colonel Sanders remains a Kentucky icon. His success story has been an inspiration to many. The industry he began has employed hundreds of thousands of workers over the years. His business and his legacy have been good for Kentucky."

Anderson responded in a letter on Tuesday, saying Sanders' chief legacy is a company "that mutilates God's creatures."

The 38-year-old Anderson has been involved in a public relations campaign on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to raise awareness of what she calls abuse of chickens in processing plants that supply poultry to the Louisville-based fast-food chicken restaurant chain.

She had previously said the bust of Sanders "stands as a monument to cruelty and has no place in the Kentucky state Capitol" in a statement distributed by the animal rights group.

In each of her letters to Fletcher, Anderson detailed alleged abuses of chickens by KFC suppliers. Among her claims, she said workers in a slaughterhouse in West Virginia had been filmed tearing the heads off live birds, spitting tobacco in their eyes, and boiling the chickens alive in tanks of scalding water.

A KFC spokeswoman Laurie Schalow earlier this month called the move to oust the colonel "just another misguided publicity stunt by PETA in their attempt to create a vegan society."

Sanders began the KFC empire from his own kitchen in southeastern Kentucky, serving at first only a few hungry travelers who stopped in his service station at Corbin. It was there back in 1940 that Sanders perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices for the Colonel's Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Years ago, the Louisville, Kentucky-based chain dropped its reference to "fried" and its name was shortened to KFC. The white-bearded Sanders, dressed in a white suit and string tie, remained a KFC spokesman, pitching the fried chicken on folksy television ads, until his death in 1980 at age 90.

KFC has more than 13,000 restaurants worldwide, serving some 8 million customers daily in more than 80 countries and territories.

The Sanders bust is one of two displays in the state Capitol that has come under fire in recent years. The other, a replica of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, has been criticized by black leaders who called for it to be moved across town to a less prominent location in the Kentucky History Center.

The largest statue in the Capitol is that of former President Abraham Lincoln, also a native Kentuckian. It stands in the middle of the Rotunda. The Sanders bust sits near a side door in the Capitol.

Fletcher was courteous in his letter to Anderson, thanking the actress for her comments.

"I hope you will feel free to contact me any time an issue is important to you," he wrote.