Sherwood Noble; Co-Founder of Dairy Queen Stores

Sherwood Noble, 82, one of the founders of the Dairy Queen stores. He was the first franchisee of Dairy Queen, the chain of soft ice cream shops that has grown to more than 5,200 stores nationwide. Noble, who owned as many as 35 stores in Illinois, had seven at the time of his death. After completing a dairy course at Iowa State College, Noble managed an ice cream store in his hometown of Clemons, Iowa. In 1931, he opened another store in Kankakee, Ill. It was there that Noble and J. F. McCullough developed the soft-serve ice cream business in 1938. The two held a Dairy Queen all you can eat sale that year, serving more than 1,600 people. Today, only five of the more than 5,200 Dairy Queen stores are corporately owned. The rest are franchised. On Sunday in Kankakee.