The richest man in Idaho used to celebrate Halloween by handing silver dollars to the trick or treaters who trudged to his hilltop home. Each dollar came with an admonition to "make it grow," words that embodied J.R. Simplot's long and prosperous life.

John Richard Simplot was one of the last of the old-time entrepreneurs, a onetime farmboy who never went to high school but built a personal fortune Forbes Magazine estimated at $2.6 billion in 2006. The company he began with the flip of a coin to acquire a $252 potato sorter grew into one of the largest agribusiness conglomerates in the world.

He was agricultural Idaho's only billionaire and a high-tech tycoon of the New West. Simplot's wealth allowed him to bankroll the start-up of Micron Technology Inc. He and other principals helped chart the future of what is now the state's largest employer at board meetings held in a Boise pancake house.

"His legacy is his vision," said Gov. Butch Otter, Simplot's former son-in-law. "Compared with him, the rest of the world was wearing bifocals."

His credo: work hard, hire good people and trust them to work hard.

Simplot claimed to own more deeded land than any other man in America. He owned the nation's largest cattle ranch in Oregon and had holdings from China to Chile. But nowhere was his influence more dominant than in Idaho, where he funded scores of business, educational and charitable enterprises. He donated millions to the state's colleges and universities and funded causes from Boise's Basque Museum to the Pocatello Public Library. His business interests were ubiquitous, covering the spectrum from Micron and the Idaho Steelheads to obscure but potentially profitable inventors and tinkerers.

MR. SPUD

Almost 30,000 people work for companies Simplot founded or financed. As of 2006, the J.R. Simplot Co. has 3,500 Idaho employees (10,200 worldwide). And nearly 19,000 Micron workers in the U.S. and abroad owe their high-tech jobs in part to the man more responsible than anyone for the state's instantaneous identification with the humble spud.

Earthy, plain-spoken, habitually profane, Simplot was to the potato what Henry Ford was to the automobile. He and his company improved the quality of potatoes, all but invented frozen french fries and dehydrated potatoes, and put "Famous Potatoes" on the map and on the state's license plates. He supplied billions of fries for billions of fast-food customers, and in his 90s remained a fixture on the streets of Boise, larger than life in his Lincoln town car with the "Mr. Spud" plates. He seldom locked the doors, kept the keys behind the visor and put off getting the brakes fixed because he didn't want to spend the money.

He was in some ways the commonest of men. Anyone could call him. His home number was in the book; he answered the phone himself.

He owned a business jet, but routinely flew commercial - coach class.

His favorite restaurant was McDonald's, where he invariably ordered french fries. He was a member of the exclusive Arid Club, but seldom ordered a meal there because he thought the prices were too high. Of far more interest to him was the club's card room. His game: gin rummy, no holds barred.

"Life was a game for him," his son Scott said. "One deal was followed by the next. You reshuffled the cards and went on to the next hand."

He liked cards, skiing, golf, duck hunting, McDonald's french fries, derby hats, Lincolns, horses and red licorice. He easily out-calculated opponents at the card table, effortlessly added large sums in his head - and could count on his fingers the number of books he had read. The bibles on his nightstand were Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, Time, U.S. News and World Report, National Geographic and Reader's Digest.

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