From the start, Joe Dealey, Jr., had been groomed to take a leadership role at the Dallas Morning News. The great-grandson of the founding publisher, George B. Dealey, he joined the family business full-time in 1970, working in employee relations, and after a stint in the Army, entered the management-training program in 1972. But in 1983, with the News’ parent, A. H. Belo Corporation, in the midst of going public, Dealey realized he had hit a professional dead end. He wanted to work on the editorial side of the paper but was stuck in the executive track, so he quit. “I’d be lying if I said my decision wasn’t a disappointment to my mother and father,” the 53-year-old says now. From 1984 to 1999, he put his newspaper experience to work as a public information specialist and eventually the director of public affairs for the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Board, handling such crises as the 1985 crash of Delta Airlines flight 191. Two years ago he started a communications consulting business in Dallas, and he has an interest in a New York independent film company that does a lot of work for the Olympics. And, yes, he still reads the News. “I’m very proud of my family’s history and heritage in the newspaper and broadcasting business,” he says. “My hat’s off to all of them.”
