Heavy lifting is all in a day's work for Jose Luis Arrieta

Jose Luis Arrieta has a simple explanation for how he got so strong. "Hard work seven days a week," he said. The results made him locally famous. In his prime, he held U.S. records in Basque weightlifting. Weightlifting has been a popular rural sport in the Basque Country of northern Spain and western France for generations. Its roots are in the traditional Basque agrarian culture. Over time, a variety of weightlifting events emerged: anvil lifting, hay-bale lifting, weight carrying and others. An event in which Arrieta especially excelled was stone lifting, in which stones or cement blocks are lifted repeatedly, ending with the stone balanced on the weight lifter's shoulder. Arrieta broke the U.S. record in 1978. He lifted a 308-pound weight 13 times and 11 times during two separate three-minute time slots. "He was really, really, really strong," longtime Idaho Secretary of State and Basque sheep rancher Pete Cenarrusa said. Arrieta was 18 when he came to the United States from the old country and went to work for Jessie Little of the Emmett-based Little family sheep empire. He later oversaw sheep-ranching operations for Brad Little, now Idaho's lieutenant governor, then spent eight years doing the same job for a rancher to whom Little sold his sheep. Now 69, Arrieta retired this year...more