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{{Infobox person
|name=John Quincy Mahaffey
|birth_date=June 6, 1938
|birth_place=Texarkana, [[Arkansas]]<br>
reared in Texarkana, [[Texas]]
|death_date=April 22, 2017
|death_place=[[Baton Rouge]], [[Louisiana]]
|resting_place=Cremation
|occupation=[[Television]] [[journalist]]
|alma_mater=Texarkana (Texas) High School<br>
University of North Texas<br>
[[University of Texas at Austin]]<br>
|spouse=(1) Nancy McDonald Redmond (divorced)<br>
(2) Diana Tucker (divorced)
|children=Merilee Wilhem
|footnotes=
}}
'''John Quincy Mahaffey''' (June 6, 1938<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.mylife.com/john-mahaffey/e497269609848|title=John Mahaffey|publisher=Mylife.com|accessdate=September 16, 2017}}</ref> – April 22, 2017) was a [[television]] [[journalist]] in [[Baton Rouge]], [[Louisiana]], from 1970 to 1998.
Though born in Texarkana, [[Arkansas]], to a journalist couple, J. Q. and Ruth Mahaffey, he was reared across the state line in Texarkana, [[Texas]]. Even as a student at Texarkana High School, from which he graduated in 1956, he had become fascinated with the television media and was a part-time cameraman for the Hussman family's KCMC, the [[CBS]] affiliate in Texarkana, which in 1961 became KTAL, an [[NBC]] station. He first enrolled at the University of North Texas in Denton, then known as North Texas State College, before he transferred to the [[University of Texas]] at [[Austin]], at which he obtained his degree in journalism and worked part-time for future [[U.S. President]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and [[Lady Bird Johnson]] at KTBC, primarily a CBS station which began affiliation in 1995 with the [[Fox Channe1]].<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://obits.theadvocate.com/obituaries/theadvocate/obituary.aspx?n=john-q-mahaffey&pid=179750848&fhid=11073|title=John Q. Mahaffey|publisher=''The Baton Rouge Advocate''|date=April 26, 2017|accessdate=September 16, 2017}}>/ref>
His first full-time broadcasting positions were in [[Corpus Christi]] at KRIS (NBC), and [[Amarillo]] with KFDA (CBS). He returned for a second stint at KRIS before relocating in 1970 to Baton Rouge, where he anchored the news at WFAB (CBS) until 1977, when he moved to WBRZ ([[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]), at which he remained until his retirement in 1998. Mahaffey said that while on the air he acted as though he was delivering the news to one person. President [[Ronald W. Reagan]] honored Mahaffey at the [[White House]] in the middle 1980s to highlight WBRZ's use of television to assist the jobless in finding work opportunities.<ref name=obit/>
Mahaffey died of complications of surgery at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. He was divorced from both Nancy McDonald Redmond and Diana Tucker. He had a daughter, Merilee Wilhem, also of Baton Rouge, and a sister Prudence M. Mackintosh of [[Dallas]], Texas. Memorial services were held on April 30, 2017, at Green Oaks Funeral Home in Baton Rouge.<ref name=obit/>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahaffey, John}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Arkansas]]
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Journalists]]
[[Category:Television]]