Food Lion's Co-Founder Honored with Documentary Film

Food Lion and Catawba College have unveiled "Lessons in Leadership," a documentary film featuring the life and business lessons students and professionals can learn from Ralph W. Ketner, Food Lion co-founder. In honor of Ketner's 95th birthday this month, Catawba College will distribute the film, in both digital and physical formats, to North Carolina high schools. The film features stories and advice from those who Ketner touched throughout his long-tenured career, from leaders in the Salisbury community to family members and colleagues. To help schools use the leadership lessons from Ketner, Catawba College collaborated with Rowan-Salisbury Schools' educators to create five lesson plans that enable students to take the concepts featured in the video and apply them in a practical way in a classroom setting. "For more than 50 years, Food Lion has been an important part of the City of Salisbury's history and all of this was made possible by our company's founders, including Mr. Ketner," says Meg Ham, president of Food Lion.  "When approached by Catawba College about this opportunity to preserve the rich heritage of Mr. Ketner's impact on this community, from the founding of Food Lion to his pro bono work with Catawba, we couldn't think of a better way to honor our founder and all he has given to us.  We were honored to underwrite this video to preserve the history and lessons Mr. Ketner has taught all of us as part of his vision to build a company with the focus on always taking care of the customer, having the lowest prices in North Carolina and being a good corporate citizen, which are all strong pillars of our business today." "We are delighted to be involved in such a wonderful project—one that both captures the story of Ralph Ketner and the story of the growth and evolution of Food Town into Food Lion," says Catawba College president Brien Lewis.  "Catawba's role will be to continue sharing this video resource, and the five lesson plans created to accompany it, with educators across the state for use in their classrooms. By helping bring Mr. Ketner's lessons into today's classrooms, we hope to inspire a future generation of entrepreneurs who will dream a big idea and work diligently to make that idea a reality." The video can be viewed at www.catawba.edu/lessonsinleadership or www.foodlion.com/newsroom.