State Farm Stadium is set to host a memorial service for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk that will bring President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, high-profile Cabinet members and other Republican luminaries to Glendale.
The 11 a.m. Sept. 21 event honoring Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder who was assassinated Sept. 10 in Utah, seems on track to become the largest gathering of its kind in Arizona’s history. But it is not the first major political funeral or memorial service in the state to attract national political heavyweights or media attention.
Here’s a look back at some of Arizona’s highest-profile political memorial services and funerals.
Barry Goldwater: June 3, 1998
Former Sen. Barry Goldwater’s funeral at Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium perhaps was the closest precursor to the Kirk memorial that is set for Sept. 21.
Goldwater was one of the founders of modern conservatism and the 1964 GOP White House nominee. He served five terms as a senator from Arizona, from 1953 to 1965 and from 1969 to 1987. He also was the author, with ghostwriter L. Brent Bozell Jr., of the 1960 book “The Conscience of a Conservative,” a seminal conservative tract that was highly influential on the emerging movement.
He died May 29, 1998, at age 89, and his June 3, 1998, service attracted a galaxy of Republican stars. The Arizona Republic reported the Goldwater crowd at more than 3,000 mourners. They included former first lady Nancy Reagan, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole, 30 sitting U.S. senators and numerous other dignitaries, many of whom cited the impact of “The Conscience of a Conservative” and his doomed 1964 run against President Lyndon Johnson on their own political careers.
Robert Tree Cody, a Native American flutist, performed and delivered a prayer. A somber Air Force flyover featured F-16s from the 62nd Fighter Squadron in the “Missing Man” formation.
”There are two Arizonans who are literally known throughout this planet. One is Geronimo, and the other is Barry Goldwater,” said then-Interior Secretary and former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat who represented then-President Bill Clinton’s administration at the Goldwater service.
Carl Hayden: Jan. 29, 1972
Former Sen. Carl Hayden, D-Arizona, served 56 years — 20,773 days — in Congress, including a then-unprecedented seven terms in the Senate. His record as the longest-serving member of Congress stood for years; the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, finally broke it in 2009.
Hayden was Arizona’s first U.S. representative, joining Congress on Feb. 19, 1912. He moved to the Senate in 1927, eventually becoming chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, and served until his Jan. 3, 1969, retirement at age 91. As Senate president pro tempore, he was third in line to the presidency.
A Jan. 29, 1972, funeral, also at ASU Gammage, followed his Jan. 25, 1972, death in Mesa at 94. Hayden’s body also had lain in state at the Arizona Capitol rotunda.
The funeral was notable for bringing the two fierce combatants of the 1964 presidential race together on stage for the final time. Johnson, the by-then former president, and Goldwater, who served in the Senate alongside Hayden from 1953 to 1965, delivered eulogies during the 50-minute service.
“He stood tall and straight before many generations of his fellow men,” Johnson said. “Now that he is gone, he leaves a lonesome spot against the sky.”
The remembrance of Hayden would mark one of Johnson’s final public appearances. The 36th president would die about a year later on Jan. 22, 1973.
John McCain: Aug. 30, 2018
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, in 1986 won the Senate seat vacated by the retiring Goldwater. He was reelected five times in 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2016 before dying in office on Aug. 25, 2018.
McCain was a former Navy aviator who was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from 1967 to 1973. He would make two unsuccessful runs for president. In 2000, he came up short against Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican front-runner, in the GOP primaries. He would secure the Republican Party’s 2008 nomination but lost the general election to President Barack Obama.
Memorial services for McCain included his body lying in state at both the Arizona Capitol and U.S. Capitol rotundas and an event at Washington National Cathedral that featured speakers such as former Presidents Bush and Obama and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Another former president, Bill Clinton, didn’t talk but was in attendance with other big names such as comedian Jay Leno and actor Warren Beatty.
In Phoenix, a more Arizona-oriented memorial service was held Aug. 30, 2018, at North Phoenix Baptist Church at Central Avenue and Bethany Home Road.
The local memorial service was headlined by then-former Vice President Joe Biden, who would become president by defeating Trump in the 2020 election. Biden, a former senator from Delaware, served with McCain for years on Capitol Hill and forged a friendship that even withstood the heated 2008 White House race that pitted Obama and him against the GOP ticket of McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
“Things have changed so much in America, they look at him as if John came from another age because he lived by a different code, an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, character, integrity, duty mattered,” Biden said in his eulogy.
“The truth is John’s code was ageless, is ageless. It wasn’t about politics with John. You could disagree on substance. It was about the underlying values that animated everything John did,” Biden said.
Twenty-four U.S. senators and more than 3,000 other mourners attended the McCain service at North Phoenix Baptist Church.
Sandra Day O’Connor: Dec. 22, 2023
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the nation’s high court, was remembered Dec. 22, 2023, with an invitation-only memorial service at the Madison Center for the Arts in Phoenix.
O’Connor, 93, a former Arizona Senate Republican leader whom President Ronald Reagan nominated for the Supreme Court in 1981, died Dec. 1, 2023, in Phoenix. She had retired from the court in 2006.
Prior to the Arizona event, O’Connor’s body had lain in repose at the Supreme Court, and then-President Biden and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts honored her at Washington National Cathedral.
In Phoenix, former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy talked about his and his wife’s long friendship with O’Connor.
“Friendships created a splendid life for Sandra, and she wanted the same for us,” Kennedy said. “The O’Connors’ friendship with us was the rock upon which we built our lives in Washington.”
Others in attendance included former Vice President Dan Quayle; former Ambassador Cindy McCain, John McCain’s widow; Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs; and former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.
Jack Williams: Sept. 4, 1998
Former Arizona Gov. John R. “Jack” Williams never had the national profile of Hayden, Goldwater, McCain or O’Connor but was a well-known figure in the state for years.
A Republican, Williams had the distinction of being the last Arizona governor to serve a two-year term and the first governor to serve a four-year one. Voters in 1968 passed a referendum increasing the terms of governor and other statewide offices from two to four years. Williams was elected to two-year terms in 1966 and 1968 and a four-year one in 1970. While governor, Williams oversaw a massive reorganization and modernization of state government. He also faced a recall effort from organized labor but was out of office by the time a legal case over petitition signatures was resolved.
He had previously served as Phoenix mayor from 1956 to 1960, but many in Phoenix knew him best as a longtime radio personality and program director at KOY (550 AM). Among the talent he worked with at the station was Steve Allen, the future television comedian and “Tonight” show host.
Williams’ signature catchphrase on KOY was: “It’s a beautiful day in Arizona. Leave us all enjoy it.”
Williams died Aug. 24, 1998. His memorial service at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 6300 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, was not as large an affair as some of the other Arizona events, but it did attract some big names, notably O’Connor, whose 1969 to 1975 time in the Arizona Legislature overlapped with Williams’ tenure as governor.
Raul Castro: May 16, 2015
Raul Castro was Arizona’s first and only Latino governor and a U.S. diplomat under two presidents.
Castro, who died April 10, 2015, at 98, served as Johnson’s U.S. ambassador to El Salvador from 1964 to 1968 and as Johnson’s ambassador to Bolivia from 1968 to 1969.
A Democrat, he lost his 1970 bid for governor to Williams but was elected to the office in 1974. He would serve until 1977, when he resigned to become President Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to Argentina.
“Raul Castro epitomized the triumph of the human spirit,” Republican Gov. Doug Ducey said during a May 16, 2015, ceremony honoring Castro at the Arizona Capitol. “He was the American dream; what others saw as adversity, he saw as opportunity.”
A memorial Mass had been held May 15, 2015, at St. Augustine Cathedral in Tucson. Castro’s ashes were interred in Sedona.
Dan Nowicki is The Arizona Republic’s national politics editor. As a reporter, he covered the Goldwater, Williams and McCain memorial services. Follow him on X at @dannowicki.
Featured speakers: White House chief of staff joins Trump and Vance as speakers at Charlie Kirk memorial
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Looking back at Arizona’s most memorable political funerals
