Former Atlanta newspaper president dies in plane crash
     PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Minor Judson "Buddy" Ward, former presi-
 dent of the company that publishes The Atlanta Journal Constitution,
 died in a plane crash Saturday. He was 63.
    Ward, of Hartwell, Ga., was the only person aboard the four seat,
 single-engine Piper Cherokee when it struck power lines and crashed
 in a grapefruit grove just west of this city, 50 miles north of West
 Palm Beach.
     A witness said the plane was flying extremely low in foggy
 weather when it struck the wires.
     There was a big fireball when it hit the power lines," Charles Ludlum 
told The Tribune of Fort Pierce.
     Mark Weinberg, a spokesman for the St. Lucie County sheriff's
 office, said Ward may have been looking for a place to land, though
 the nearest private landing strip was several miles away.
     Cox News Service said Ward took off Saturday morning from an air-
 port in Stuart, Fla., where the plane had recently been serviced,
 and was scheduled to meet his wife, Faye, at an airport in Statesboro,
 Ga.
     Ward, a native of Atlanta, graduated from Murphy High School in
 Atlanta in 1953 and joined the Journal-Constitution as an apprentice
 printer that year.
     Over the next 23 years he was promoted to production manager and
 director of production and engineering
    He was named vice president of production and engineering in 1979
 and vice president and general manager in 1982 before he became
 president of Atlanta Newspapers, publisher of the Journal-Constitu-
 tion, in 1984.
     He later served as senior vice president of operations for Cox
 Newspapers, which owns Atlanta Newspapers.
     He retired in 1990.
 Knoxville News Sentinel 15 Feb 98
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