Goodbye “Mr. Chips”
The Associated Press reports that J.R. Simplot, “Mr. Spud” Dies At 99
(AP) J.R. Simplot left home in 1923 at age 14 with four gold coins given to him by his mother. He ended his life as the spud king of America and one of the nation’s richest men.
The Idaho farmer, who dominated the state’s business and political landscape for 70 years, died Sunday at his Boise home at age 99. Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said Simplot apparently died of natural causes.
His businesses, still family owned, manufacture agriculture, horticulture and turf fertilizers; animal feed and seeds; food products such as fruits, potatoes and other vegetables; and industrial chemicals and irrigation products. He all but invented the first commercially viable frozen french fries in the world.
In an article on Micron, a name only a few older computer people will recognize, when asked how a potato farmer got involved with computers, Mr. Simplot noted that his business was based on chips – potato chips, cow chips, and computer chips.
He went from potato farming, to the manufacture of the fertilizer he needed, and finally into financing a computer chip foundry to diversify business in Idaho. I don’t know about today, but for years, all of the french fries at McDonald’s came from Simplot.
