(AP) — In this July 24, 1998 photo, Murray Lender kisses the world's largest bagel while baker Larry Wilkerson, left, and Lender's Bagel Bakery manager Jim Cudahy watch after the weight of the bagel was revealed during Bagelfest in Mattoon, Ill.
Murray Lender, who helped turn his father's small Connecticut bakery into a national company that introduced bagels to many Americans for the first time, has died in Florida. He was 81. Lender's wife, Gillie Lender, tells The Associated Press that her husband died Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at a hospital in Miami from complications from a fall he suffered 10 weeks ago. The couple lived in both Aventura, Fla., and Woodbridge, Conn. (AP Photo/Journal Gazette, Doug Lawhead)