The late Ernest W. “Mac” McFarland to be inducted into Arizona Farm and Ranch Hall of Fame at a March 22 Chandler ceremony, along with six other people, for their contributions to Arizona.

McFarland will be one of the honorees at the Arizona Farm and Ranch Hall of Fame ceremony at the Sheraton Grand, 5594 W. Wild Horse Pass Blvd., Chandler. Tickets are $175 at www.azfarmandranch.org.

“Mac,” as McFarland was known to Arizonans and nationally, will be honored, along with 2025 inductees Jessee Hooker Davis, Barbara Stevenson Jackson, Leona Carlyle-Kakar, J.P. Orme, W.T. Gladden and the Arizona State Cowbelles, a chapter of the American National CattleWomen, according to a news release.

The Arizona Farm and Ranch Museum & Hall of Fame is a nonprofit founded in 2007, the release states.

McFarland, who passed away in 1984, will be recognized for his decades-long effort to establish a sustainable water supply in Arizona. He was a WWI Navy veteran who rose to serve as U.S. senator, including two years as the Senate’s majority leader. He was later an Arizona governor and was chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court for about a year.

McFarland was born in Oklahoma. As a lawmaker, he owned 1,000 acres of land near Florence, where he grew cotton, alfalfa, and grapes, and taught his grandchildren how to irrigate and avoid wasting water.
He was an attorney and Pinal County judge in the 1920s and 30s, often working alongside Senator Carl Hayden on water systems.

He argued against California using delay tactics to continue drawing water. As a sitting Governor, he even argued Arizona’s side in the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, without notes, the release states. Without his motion, Arizona would have lost its allocation of Colorado River water, it states.

The Central Arizona Project, made law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, is Arizona’s single largest renewable water supply, serving 80% of the state’s population.

McFarland also founded KTVK, Channel 3 in Phoenix, because he was fascinated with the then-new medium of television. The newly elected Governor chose the call letters because he wanted “TV to be our middle name.”

KTVK is now known locally as Arizona’s Family.

McFarland is also widely regarded as "a father" of the G.I. Bill. The World War II legislation was created to benefit American veterans returning home. McFarland is credited with drafting the provisions to provide education and zero-down home loans to eligible servicemen, the release states.

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