Source:  Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 6/7/11

Collier Wenderoth Jr., the chairman and CEO of Fort Smith, Ark.-based O.K. Industries, Inc. has died at the age of 87. He was renown throughout the poultry industry.

He joined the small family company selling feed for O.K. Feed Mills and became its president in 1955. O.K. Industries (the parent company of O.K. Foods) operates processing facilities in Arkansas and Oklahoma. O.K. Foods sells fresh, frozen and fully cooked chicken to foodservice providers and food processors in the US.

He had served as the chairman of what is now the National Chicken Council and was named the Poultry Federation’s Man of the Year in 2004. Inducted into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2009, Wenderoth was named by the University of Arkansas’ Poultry Center of Excellence as one of the 32 founders of the state’s poultry industry.

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