<p>Tom Arrendale, president of Fieldale Farms in Baldwin, has died. He was 83.</p><p>Arrendale died Monday from complications related to a head injury suffered in May.</p><p>Born in Rabun County, Arrendale attended Georgia Tech in Atlanta and later joined the U.S. Army during World War II. In the early 1960s, Arrendale and businessman Joe S. Hatfield sold their individual companies to Ralston Purina Co.</p><p>Ten years later, Purina put its Georgia poultry division up for sale.</p><p>Arrendale and Hatfield bought the company and renamed it Fieldale, the last syllables of each of their surnames.</p><p>Three decades later, Arrendale and Hatfield are credited with transforming a company that slaughtered 600,000 birds per week at two processing plants in Gainesville and nearby Cornelia in the 1970s into todays three processing plants that slaughter 3.2 million birds per week.</p><p>Fieldale is one of the largest employers in North Georgia, with 4,300 employees and 550 chicken growers.</p><p>Hatfield, 79, continues to serve as company chairman and chief executive officer.</p><p>He was a one-of-a-kind individual who treated everyone the same. He will be greatly missed, said Tom Hensley, a Fieldale vice president.</p><p>Survivors include his wife, Winifred; son, Thomas Augustus Arrendale III; daughter, Cyndae; grandson, Joseph Augustus Bussey; sister, Nelle; and aunt, Willie Blalock Elliott.</p><p>A memorial service will be held Thursday at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Clarkesville, Ga., according to McGahee-Griffin & Stewart Funeral Home in Cornelia.</p>
