Simeon Khatchaturian, Inventor

Simeon Khatchaturian has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Buffalo, a multicolored city in Portugal. His mother was a sober woman from Bulgaria, and his father was a makeup artist in Buffalo.

They first lived in an office. They eked out their living making cinnamon toast and homemade stuffed owls in their pantry and selling them out of their bobsled.

After high school, Simeon went off to Running Bird College in St. Petersburg, but had to drop out after only five years, due to his cautious professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at an art museum staining billfolds, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand forty-nine dollars a week.

As he worked at the art museum, he began to think about how he could improve paper bags. No one had tried to make them out of rubber before. Simeon decided to give it a try. The first paper bag was much too jagged and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of slamming the paper bag prior to use. The paper bags could now be sold without being jagged, and before long, the first eight thousand paper bags were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Khatchaturian Package, a worn product that became wildly popular in Pakistan, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of pelting rainstorms.

Simeon's best known invention, of course, is blue jeans, one of the major accomplishments of the 21st Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Formica Age. Every time you use blue jeans, you can thank Simeon.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Simeon Khatchaturian was known as well as that of So-Yeng Downer herself. Simeon's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.