- By Julie Kroon Alvarado, Arizona State
Jewell McFarland Lewis, Arizona, has to be described as a media mogul and a philanthropic jewel in the same breath, as one role has been integral to the other throughout her life. Jewell served as Chairman of the Board of Media America Communications, Inc. (MAC Communications), a parent company of one of the largest ABC-network affiliate television studios, two popular FM radio stations, the "azfamily.com" Web site, the ever-popular Phoenix magazine and Desert Production Center. MAC also had a marketing agreement to broadcast the cable Warner Brothers shows. The ABC affiliate was one of the largest and most successful in the United States. When the affiliation was lost in 1995, the MAC local station continued to go head-to-head with the networks and consistently placed at the top of the ratings.
The television station branded the slogan "Arizona's Family" in the minds and hearts of Arizonans. Jewell and her husband, Delbert, are certainly the "parents." In fact, in the hard-hearted news business, the Lewis Family continued to run their "mom-and-pop" business and were known for low employee turnover, an open-door policy, and hugs in the newsroom. This parental feeling flowed out to the community in ways too numerous to list.
Their latest endeavor is the Jewell McFarland Lewis Fresh Start Women's Resource Center scheduled to open soon in Phoenix, Ariz. This self-help center will provide assistance and resources to women of all ages to provide them with counseling, mentors, training or contact with social service organizations to boost them into their future. It is a national model being benchmarked by cities all over the country.
"Our family has been blessed with a caring and giving lady. Not only has she given of herself to the community and state, she has always been there for every member of her family," says daughter Leah Lewis Hendrikse, Arizona State. In addition to her Kappa daughter, Jewell has five children, Kara, Bill, John, Leah (Jon), Del Jr. (Heather) and seven grandchildren.
Jewell climbed to these heights of media mogul and extraordinary philanthropist from a humble, yet historic, beginning. She was born in the small town of Fairfield, Iowa, and moved to Florence, Ariz., as a young child. Then she was reared during her school years as a senator's daughter in Washington D.C. Her father, Ernest W. McFarland, served as a U.S. senator, Senate Majority Leader, and then as Arizona's Governor and Chief Justice.
Jewell remembers being pulled out of school to witness historic speeches such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "a date which will live in infamy" speech following the invasion of Pearl Harbor. McFarland was the author of the GI Bill of Rights and then the founder of Arizona Television Company in 1955. One of his most influential moments, however, was when he required Jewell to return to Washington to complete her master's degree in education at George Washington University before marrying her longtime friend from Florence, Delbert Lewis.
The love of learning and reading has never left Jewell. She earned her doctorate from Arizona State University and taught school in Florence and Coolidge for nearly two decades, retiring in 1982 after five years of service as the Reading Director for Coolidge Public Schools. Jewell has served on numerous local, state and national committees related to education. She is still a member of the Governor's Advisory Committee on Quality Education, and the Arizona Education Foundation, not to mention various boards of all three state universities. She and Del have recently endowed two university chairmanships, one in the name of McFarland and one in the name of Lewis, at each of the three state universities.
If you catch up with Jewell and try to talk to her about all of her awards or civic activities or even her service on the Power Authority Board where she was the only woman, the conversation will invariably slip back around to her family, especially the grandchildren. Or, to one key message that Jewell wants to keep delivering, "Every child in the United States ought to have the opportunity to get a good education." Jewell's tireless efforts will certainly bring us closer to that goal.