Alfred Stokely, 89, Gatorade Marketer
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Alfred Jehu Stokely, the retired Stokely-Van Camp Inc. president who transformed his family’s food company by adding Gatorade to its lineup of products in the 1960s, died Sunday at his home in Whitestown, Ind.. He was 89.
Stokely joined the Indianapolis-based company in 1938 and became its president in 1960. In 1967, the company began selling Gatorade, a sports drink created by the University of Florida for its football team, the Gators. Its formula for replenishing electrolytes was crucial to the school’s athletes, who had to train in Florida’s extreme summer heat.
Stokely-Van Camp’s addition of the drink to its product lineup transformed the company, which had been best known for pork and beans. A series of legal disputes established the company’s ownership of the formula in exchange for fees to the University of Florida.
