Grant MacEwan was a farmer, Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Dean of Agriculture at the University of Manitoba, the 28th Mayor of Calgary and both a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and the ninth Lieutenant Governor of Alberta. The neighbourhoods of MacEwan in Calgary and Edmonton are named for him, as is the Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton and the MacEwan Student Centre at the University of Calgary. The majority of his books, of which there are many, were written after his retirement from politics and were intended to share Canadian history with Canadians. On May 6, 2000, MacEwan was honoured with the Golden Pen Lifetime Achievement Award for lifetime literary achievements by the Writers Guild of Alberta, which had previously only been awarded to W.O. Mitchell. He died a month later in Calgary, at the ripe old age of 97, and was given a state funeral, the first one in Alberta since 1963.