Omar Knedlik

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Omar Knedlik (1916–1989), is the inventor of the ICEE frozen drink. He was born and raised a poor farm boy in Barnes, Kansas in 1916. Knedlik was a World War II veteran who bought his first ice cream shop after the war. He owned several before moving to Coffeyville, Kansas, where he became the owner of a Dairy Queen in the late-1950's. Knedlik did not have a soda fountain, so he served semi-frozen bottled soft drinks. He found that they were a hit, so he worked with a Dallas company to develop the ICEE machine,which took him five years, replicating the consistency in slushy soft drinks. In the mid-1960s, the first ICEE machines were sold in the United States.

In 1965, 7-Eleven bought some of the machines, calling its version the Slurpee. Knedlik and his family received royalty checks for about 17 years until his patent expired. He moved his family from Coffeyville to the bigger nearby town of Joplin, Missouri in 1983, when Knedlik developed kidney problems and needed dialysis. He died at age 73 in 1989.

Slurpee, born in Kansas, turns 40