LakeNET - Orville Redenbacher

Mr. Redenbacher moved to Porter County, Indiana in 1951 and moved to California in 1976. Redenbacher turned down an appointment to West Point Academy after he graduated at the top of his high school class He instead attended Purdue University, where he earned a degree in agronomy and became a county agriculture agent. In the early 1940s, while managing a 12,000-acre farm where he was growing popcorn, Redenbacher and Bowman used the fields to experiment with corn hybrids. The duo grew, buying up Chester, Inc., a diversified agricultural company in Valparaiso. Several decades and 30,000 hybrids later, they introduced gourmet popcorn, which Redenbacher described as fluffier and of higher quality, but also more expensive to produce. "We tried to sell the different processors on the idea that people would pay more for a better quality product, that this was a good marketing concept," he told The Associated Press in 1987. "They said we were crazy, and we tried to prove them wrong." Redenbacher peddled the popcorn himself, driving across the country to convince store owners that Red Bow, named for its inventors, would sell. Sell it they did, and in 1976, Redenbacher and Bowman sold their operation to Hunt-Wesson Inc., the Fullerton, California-based company now owned by ConAgra. Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn remains the leading brand among microwave popcorns, said Hunt-Wesson publicist Jill Saletta.

Source:

nwi.com :: Orville Redenbacher, popcorn king, dies at 88.
Associated Press September 20, 1995