Cal and Mimi Farley had only one daughter, but a lifetime of sacrifice, hard work and a sincere interest in the nation's youth brought them thousands of "sons."

A natural athlete, Cal's love of sports brought him to Amarillo in 1923 to play professional baseball. Cal noticed a flock of youngsters often hung around the ball parks when they should have been in school and around the wrestling arenas at night when they should have been at home. All his adult life Cal Farley wanted to help at-risk boys.

Cal took over a defunct tire shop and while he and Mimi were building it into a successful business, he and a few friends formed the Maverick Club to keep neglected boys off the streets with organized athletics.

However, the Maverick Club failed to reach the group of boys that Cal wanted to help. These were the boys who received most of their education in the alleys -- the results of broken homes -- youngsters to whom the words school, church and family were almost unknown. Out of his dissatisfaction grew the dream of Boys Ranch. Then in 1939, his dream became reality when Julian Bivins donated the land that became the home of Cal Farley's Boys Ranch.

For almost 30 years Cal and Mimi worked side by side helping boys find a "Shirttail to Hang Onto" at the Ranch. The great heart of Cal Farley was stilled February 19, 1967, while he was surrounded by his boys during worship services in the Ranch's chapel. Mimi Farley survived her husband by only four weeks, dying in a Houston, Texas hospital on March 19, 1967.

Cal and Mimi Farley are buried at the Ranch in the Farley Memorial Gardens. A bronze statue of the Ranch founder and a boy representing all the boys of the Ranch, and those yet to come, stands as a tribute to the man who was called "America's Greatest Foster Father."