EAST TEXAS (KLTV/KTRE) – A staple of Texas agriculture and the longtime host of Farm and Ranch News, Horace McQueen, has died. He was 86.
In addition to his television show, which aired on KLTV and KTRE for nearly 30 years, McQueen had a radio show and was a contributing writer for many magazines.
On his daily morning show, McQueen gave information on agriculture production practice. The show started in West Texas but he moved to East Texas in the 1970s.
McQueen always began his show with his signature line: “A pleasant good morning to you; hope everything’s off to a fine start at your house this morning.”
McQueen retired from the show in 2000.
Funeral services will be Saturday, March 29, at 2 p.m. at Callaway-Allee Funeral Home in Crockett.
McQueen was born July 3, 1938, in a sharecropper shack just outside Latexo. He grew up in La Porte, where he grew up working for local farmers and ranchers.
In 1955, McQueen caught a calf in the calf scramble at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The following year, he returned with his calf and was awarded the grand champion Brahman heifer. He sold the heifer with $700 and received scholarship offers from Rice University and Texas A&M. McQueen chose A&M, where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets.
Upon graduation, McQueen and his wife and son moved to Virginia, where McQueen was an associate editor of the National Future Farmers magazine. McQueen ended up in Lubbock in 1964, where he began broadcasting his weekday morning show.
McQueen became interested in the Murray Grey cattle, a premier beef breed in Australia, which he learned about during several cattle industry sponsored trips in the late 1960’s. In 1969, he and Carole established Murray Grey USA, which imported the first Murray Grey semen into the United States. In 1970, McQueen left broadcasting to become a full time cattleman, importing the first live Murray Grey cattle into the USA in 1972, and was a founding member of the American Murray Grey Association. The family brand was TV.
In 1973, McQueen, his wife, two sons and twin daughters moved to a ranch just outside of Troup, and McQueen began production of Farm and Ranch News on KLTV and KTRE. He continued to raise Murray Greys, as well as participate in several business ventures, including as a founding director of both City National Bank and Oak Brook Nursing Center in Whitehouse.
During this period he served on the board of directors of Federal Land Bank (now Heritage Land Bank) in Tyler and the Sabine River Authority, as well as serving on the executive committee of Build East Texas, and as a member of Texas A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Development Council.
Through the years, McQueen interviewed U.S. presidents, senators and congressmen and local farmers and ranchers.
His numerous awards included being selected as the 1980 Farm Broadcaster of the year by his colleagues in the National Association of Farm Broadcasters; being named as the 1986 Man of the Year in Texas Agriculture by the Texas County Agricultural Agents Association; being a 2012 recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award from the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and receiving the Ralph W. Steen East Texan of the Year award in 2023.
Shortly after his retirement from television, he and his wife, Carole, moved back to his Houston County roots, raising Murray Grey cattle and timber on several farms, including Queensdale Farms just outside of Latexo, which has been in the McQueen family since 1854. During his retirement years he wrote weekly columns for several East Texas newspapers.
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