Frank Quine, a Cuyahoga Falls native who worked with the newspaper industry's giants in the 1970s and 1980s and helped to train thousands of media executives as a leader of the American Press Institute, died Oct. 31 at his home in Broadlands, Va. He was 84.

Quine, a 1959 Kent State University School of Journalism graduate who served as editor of the campus daily newspaper in his senior year, began his career as a sports reporter at the Jacksonville Journal and also worked at the Evening Independent in St. Petersburg, Florida.

He became interested in becoming involved in mid-career training for journalists after attending an API sports editors seminar in 1967, and joined the organization as an associate director in 1969.

He became API's managing director in 1977 and its director in 1979.

At API, Quine came to know the newspaper industry’s most influential leaders – from the Sulzbergers of The New York Times and the Grahams of The Washington Post to Al Neuharth of Gannett.

During his tenure at API, he planned and conducted 92 seminars for editors, department heads and publishing executives. Those he welcomed came from across the United States, Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere.

Key role in advancement of Maryland campus program

Quine left APi in 1987 and joined the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism the following year as its development director and assistant dean. He also served as vice president of the American Journalism Review.

He played a key role in bringing the college a grant for an endowed Knight Chair in 1994. In the the final four years before his retirement in 2010, he helped coordinate fundraising, design and construction of the college's new home, the $30 million John S. and James L. Knight Hall.

He came out of retirement for six months in 2013 to assist the university during a search for a new development director.

'A journalist's journalist'

“Frank was a journalist's journalist — a thorough pro who loved the news business and brought an amazingly positive, cheerful, can-do attitude to everything he did and everyone he met,” said Merrill Professor Emeritus Carl Sessions Stepp.

Along a path that brought him several distinguished service awards for his work in the industry. Quine was selected as the 1971 recipient of the William D. Taylor Award as Kent State University’s Journalism Alumnus of the Year.

Quine's survivors include Mary Ellen Doran-Quine, his wife of 43 years; two children from his first marriage to Beverly Champion, Laura Heinle (Thomas) of Silver Spring, Maryland, and Linda Barry (Chase) of Jacksonville, Florida; a stepson, Sean Kelleher of Winchester, Virginia; two grandsons, William and Theo Heinle of Silver Spring; and stepgrandson Ethan Barry of Jacksonville; two brothers, Thomas and John Quine, and two sisters Anne Quine and Ellen Hill, all of Ohio.

He was predeceased by son Franklin Quine, stepson Paul Kelleher and brother William Quine.

Plans for a celebration of life are pending.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cuyahoga Falls native who led American Press Institute dies at 84