Journalist Joan Duffy dead at 61

• Tweet

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Longtime journalist Joan I. Duffy, who covered Louisiana for United Press International, has died in Little Rock, Ark., of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

She was 61.

Duffy, who also worked stints with The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, was a fixture in the Arkansas capital and appeared on the weekly news program Arkansas Week.

Duffy was born in Boston. Her father, a hotel manager, moved her to Houston and later to Hartford, Conn., where she graduated from high school.

She attended the University of Houston and became the first female editor of the school newspaper, the Daily Cougar, her brother, Mark, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Duffy started her career at the Enterprise before moving to UPI where she worked as a reporter and editor in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Duffy is survived by a son, two stepdaughters and three grandchildren, as well as her father, a sister and three brothers.