Arch West believed in the afterlife and he believed in perfectly seasoned tortilla chips.

Somewhere in the great beyond, he is likely opening up a bag of Doritos and smiling at all the attention he's receiving, his daughter said.

The 97-year-old credited with inventing the popular chip died last week of natural causes. This weekend, a bagpiper will play a Scottish tune at his memorial service as the family tosses the chips into the earth, on top of his urn.

“It will be just the plain (flavour),” his daughter Jana Hacker said from Texas. “Otherwise people will say, ‘Thanks Jana, I've got nacho all over my hand.' ”

West was a World War II veteran, family man and, in the 1960s, a slick marketing guy with big shades and a Rolex. He worked on the J-E-L-L-O campaign in New York before he was recruited as the vice-president of marketing for Frito-Lay.

In 1961, during a family trip to San Diego, he came across a roadside stall that made corn chips, Hacker said. He was fascinated by the way the chip differed from the Frito, the company's other corn chip.

According to Hacker, when he brought the idea back, it received a lukewarm reception. But West procured money from other budgets for some covert research and development, his daughter said.

The first flavours to hit the market were corn and taco, and “then they came up with the crazy ones,” said Hacker.

West was a dip man and liked the plain flavour in addition to Cool Ranch. He never stopped tasting the new creations. Just a few months ago, West tried cheeseburger-flavoured Doritos. He was disgusted.

“We both bit into it and went, ‘Yech!'” Hacker remembered.

As an employee, there were no royalties or lifetime supply of chips for West — just a steady stream of test products (such as Funyuns) and a pride that came with being the man who believed in Doritos.

At an assisted living home, “every one of those nurse's aides knew about it,” Hacker said.

But many of his friends did not. Whit Whitaker, who knew West for 40 years, didn't know the man he went to church with invented the popular corn chip until he read his obituary.

Sure, he was “reasonably proud” of his job at Frito-Lay, Whitaker said.

“He didn't wear a sign on his back. We knew Arch was an official, we knew he had a strong military record and was corporately involved with Frito-Lay,” he said.

As far as Whitaker can recall, West didn't bring any Nacho Cheese Doritos to church socials.

“The doctors sort of cut me off from eating some of that stuff. It doesn't go very well with my heart condition,” Whitaker said from his home in Texas.

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Twenty years ago, West's life slowed down after his car was T-boned by a tanker truck while he was volunteering for a disaster relief team in Amarillo, Texas. While he enjoyed good health until recently, his wife Charlotte died last year.

West leaves behind four children, 12 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and a world of grateful snackers.