Kentucky Colonel - Colonel Toast

Colonel Toast

In 1936 New York advertising agency owner Colonel Arthur Kudner wrote a toast to the Kentucky colonel. The toast was quickly adopted by the Honorable Order, and it was widely published for use by colonels. The toast has since been ceremoniously presented at each of the Kentucky Colonels' Derby Eve Banquets.

I give you a man dedicated to the good things of life, to the gentle, the heartfelt things, to good living, and to the kindly rites with which it is surrounded. In all the clash of a plangent world he holds firm to his ideal – a gracious existence in that country of content 'where slower clocks strike happier hours.' He stands in spirit on a tall-columned veranda, a hospitable glass in his hand, and he looks over the good and fertile earth, over ripening fields, over meadows of rippling bluegrass. The rounded note of a horn floats through the fragrant stillness. Afar, the sleek and shining flanks of a thoroughbred catch the bright sun. The broad door, open wide with welcome… the slow, soft-spoken word… the familiar step of friendship… all of this is his life and it is good. He brings fair judgment to sterner things. He is proud in the traditions of his country, in ways that are settled and true. In a trying world darkened by hate and misunderstanding, he is a symbol of those virtues in which men find gallant faith and of the good men might distill from life. Here he stands, then. In the finest sense, an epicure… a patriot… a man. Gentlemen, I give you, the Kentucky Colonel.

— Colonel Arthur Kudner