Will Radcliff

Willard Lawson Radcliff (December 20, 1939 – September 18, 2014) was an American businessman who created the Slush Puppie, a frozen slush drink. He also founded Slush Puppie Corp. in 1970, which grew to $25 million in worldwide annual sales by 1999. In 2000, Radcliff sold Slush Puppie to Cadbury Schweppes for $16.6 million. Slush Puppie was acquired by J & J Snack Foods in 2006.

Radcliff was born on December 20, 1939, in Dayton, Kentucky, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Cincinnati's Western Hills High School in 1958.

As the Slush Puppie Corp. expanded, Radcliff added additional products, including Thelma’s frozen lemonade, Pacific Bay Smooth-E, and Lanikai Frozen Cocktail.

In the 1980s, Radcliff became interested in land surrounding Umatilla, Florida, while visiting friends in the 1980s. He acquired approximately 3,594 acres of wilderness and pasture land when "was nothing there but lots of cattle," according to his daughter, DeeAnn Radcliff Harmon. Radcliff regularly flew in a private plane between his home in Ohio and his ranch in Central Florida. He called it Radcliff's Fly'n R Ranch, located in Lake and Marion counties. He built a 19,990-square-foot barn complete with a lumber mill, to saw the wooden boards used to construct his ranch house.

Radcliff became seriously interested in land conservation following the sale of Slush Puppie for $16.6 million in 2000. Much of the Floridian land which Radlciff owned had been drained for cattle ranching or pasture land. Radcliff oversaw the restoration of much of the land to a more natural state and completed most of the work himself. He dredged his marshes to restore area lakes, which created habitat for ospreys, waterfowl and wading birds.

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