Basilio Aja

Inducted in 2018

Jan 1

Buckeye - Maricopa County

Inducted in 2018

Basilio Aja was born in Seligman, Arizona in 1929. Each winter his family followed the sheep down to the Valley, where he graduated from Glendale High School. When it came time for college Bass stayed home to help his father with his growing sheep operation, allowing his brother to go instead.

Bass, as he was known, was well known in the sheep industry. A second generation sheep rancher, Bass’ parents came to this country from the Basque region of the Pyrenees Mountains in Spain.

Although he only owned one ranch, the Black Rock, he leased a number of different ranches around the state. In addition to his love for the land and his animals, Bass loved to build things: stock ponds, water towers, fences, corrals, tables. At one point he built a bridge over a dangerous wash in Northern Arizona that still stands. His wife, Irene, recalls that when they lived at the Black Rock the area was in two townships with a large wash dividing it.

When the wash ran people from one side could not get to the other so Bass took it upon himself to build a bridge. Irene said that when the big electric poles were replaced in the Aguila area the poles were given to Bass. “He took them up north and that’s what they used to build the bridge. It’s still standing and the trucks – the semis can still go across it. They called it Haytachi’s (the Basque word for grandfather) Bridge.”

During the drought, when Bass had to haul water to supply his sheep, he never forgot his Navajo neighbors. He would haul water up on the reservation and water their corn crops and small critters. He called himself the Rain Man.

A lifetime sheepman, he served as vice president of the Arizona Wool Growers Association and was a founding board member of the American Lamb Company, a member of the Sheep Advisory Committee of the American Farm Bureau, Western Range Association, and Mountain Plains Agricultural Association.

Bass Aja had a strong respect for the people around him, no matter what their station in life. He passed that respect and his work ethic on to his children. Bass and Irene’s first child, Christina, died at the age of two and a half. The surviving children include: Melanie, Basilio Fermin (Bas), Roy Manuel, Rachel and Gigette.

Bass Aja passed away on April 5, 2014.