James Quayle; Father of Past Vice President

James C. Quayle, an Indiana newspaper publisher and father of former Vice President Dan Quayle, died Friday. He was 79.

Quayle, who had been in failing health for several years, died at a care center. He had most recently lived in Wickenburg, about 60 miles west of Phoenix.

Quayle was chairman of Huntington Newspapers Inc. in Indiana. He owned the Huntington Herald-Press with his wife, Corinne Pulliam Quayle, since 1964.

Quayle’s newspaper career began as an advertising salesman in Lebanon, Ind., in 1945. He joined The Portsmouth Daily Times in Ohio in 1947, also as an ad salesman. He moved to Huntington, then owned by his father-in-law Eugene Pulliam, in 1948 as advertising manager.

Quayle left Huntington in 1955 to go to Phoenix as public relations and personnel director for The Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette.

He returned to Huntington in 1963 as publisher and bought the newspaper the following year. It was there that he joined the rabidly right-wing John Birch Society.

Besides his wife and son, Quayle is survived by two other sons, Christopher P. Quayle of Carefree and Michael Quayle, publisher of the Vincennes (Ind.) Sun-Commercial; and a daughter, Martha Quayle Thomas of Monticello, Wis.