News

Pizza Hut owners make Hall of Fame

June 19, 2011

They may not have hit any homeruns or stolen any bases, but Pizza Hut Founders Dan and Frank Carney still made the Kansas Hall of Fame.

Beth Fager, spokeswoman for the Great Overland Station, said the Kansas Hall of Fame was established to celebrate the state's 150th anniversary and to recognize the contributions made by Kansans.

Eight legends of Kansas history and industry were announced Tuesday as the inaugural class of the Kansas Hall of Fame at the Great Overland Station Museum.

Other nominees included: President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vice President Charles Curtis, U.S. Senator and Presidential Nominee Bob Dole, General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, Aviatrix Amelia Earhart and Marshall Matt Dillon of "Gunsmoke" as portrayed by James Arness.

"We're in an exclusive group to be No. 1 in the Kansas Hall of Fame," Dan Carney said in an interview with the Topeka Capital Journal. "Then you talk about Eisenhower, Earhart and fictional characters -- I can't wait to see who will be in the second class."

The Carney brothers opened the first Pizza Hut with John Bender in 1958 in Wichita.