GRAND JUNCTION - Garlic lovingly planted last Halloween in a rural field northwest of Grand Junction has sprouted from the ground and is inching toward a Fourth of July harvest.

The spicy cloves are just a small part of the legacy of Jean Pierre Doyhenard, a Basque immigrant who came to western Colorado more than a half-century ago to herd sheep and later became a leader in the Basque community.

Mr. Doyhenard died Jan. 28 at age 75.

In his youth, Mr. Doyhenard annoyed occupying Nazis by pelting them with rocks from a homemade slingshot in his boyhood home Ikxasou, Ustaritch, a Basque province in the French Pyrenees.

He came to the United States at age 19 to join an older brother herding sheep under contract for a Grand Junction-area family. Mr. Doyhenard was among hundreds of post-war Basque immigrants who came to western Colorado to raise sheep.

Following his naturalization as an American citizen, he bought his own herd, married Margaret "Maggie" Arterberry in 1959 and packed her off to sheep camp on Pinyon Mesa.

"My brother and I spent our early childhood moving from camp to camp on Glade Park," said Mr. Doyhenard's daughter, Mona Dyer. "He'd tell us about the Nazis and how he was out there with his slingshot, as a boy of 8 or 9. He said the rank and file soldiers were nice, but the officers were frightful."

The family moved into town in 1964 and bought a small farm in 1969. Mr. Doyhenard, working as a meatpacker by day and farmer-rancher in the evenings and on weekends, raised livestock, hay, fruit and vegetables - lots of vegetables.

Mr. Doyhenard was an integral part of western Colorado's Basque community, and in 1999 he and his wife led a fight against the city of Grand Junction, which wanted to tear down a historic fronton, which is a three-sided, outdoor handball court and is the focal point of local Basque recreation and social gatherings on the west side of the city.

The city, which was developing Canyon View Park, wanted to tear down the court for additional parking and had considerable backing from local political leaders, "but once they took on my dad and mom, they didn't have a chance," Dyer said.

"With Basques, you couldn't put us down," Dyer said. "He was the 'old man' of the Basque community, and Maggie is hell on wheels."

Mr. Doyhenard is survived by his wife, Maggie; a son, Michael; a daughter, Mona Dyer; two grandchildren; a brother, Prosper Doyhenard, of California; and sisters Marie Casaubon and Chilein Savery, both of France.