State University in Logan in 2001, honoring him for his many contributions to the agricultural industry of America, particularly the Intermountain West. Simplot was responsible for the Potato Bust of 1976, after making massive short plays he refused to honor those contracts. This resulting in millions in dollars of losses for the New York Merchant Exchange. A public outcry followed, and the newly created Commodity Futures Trading Commission held hearings. Further enhancing his enormous wealth, the J.R. Simplot Company provided startup capital in the early 1980s for the fledgling Micron Technology, a Boise-based manufacturer of computer memory chips. Additionally, he invested heavily in Remington Oil. In 1961, Simplot financed the Brundage Mountain ski area near McCall, two hours north of Boise. The Simplot Company sold its 50% interest in Brundage in April 2006 to the longtime co-owner, the DeBoer family. In the early 1950s, Simplot was the benefactor to the fledgling Bogus Basin ski area near Boise when it had financial difficulties; the base area lodge is named in his honor. In 1995, the J.R. Simplot Company expanded into Australia, acquiring iconic food brands like Birds Eye, Leggo's, Chiko, and Edgell. Simplot's first marriage was to Ruby Rosevear (1911–2004) of Glenns Ferry, whom he had met on a blind date; he proposed to her in his Model A Ford in 1931. After 29 years and four children, the marriage ended in divorce in 1960, when she suddenly left Simplot for another man. Years later, Simplot admitted that while he was growing his business empire in the 1950s, he had not spent enough time with his family. He and his second wife, Esther Becker (born 1934), a former opera singer, met in the mid 1960s in New York. He was on a business trip and she was working as a receptionist for the Henry Phipps Foundation; they were married in 1972. Before his death, Simplot and his wife Esther resided in the Grove Hotel building in downtown Boise, a few blocks from the company's headquarters. The couple donated their hilltop home, in Boise's north end, to the state of Idaho in late 2004 for use as a governor's mansion. (Known as "The Idaho House," it was returned to the Simplot family in 2013, and demolished in January 2016.) Accident On January 1, 2007, while attending the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, with his wife and son, Simplot fell from a motorized