Mercer Bailey, who spent 47 years with AP, dies

BELTON, Mo. (AP) — Mercer Bailey, whose 47-year career with The Associated Press began with the use of Morse Code and concluded in the early days of the internet, has died of complications from COVID-19. Bailey’s family said he died Saturday at a hospital in Belton, Missouri. He was 94. Bailey was 17 when he joined the AP’s Atlanta bureau in May 1943. His wide-ranging career included a 20-year stint as assistant bureau chief in Kansas City, Missouri, a position he held until his retirement in 1990. In 1981 he got out of a hospital bed to help cover the Hyatt Regency Hotel skywalk collapse that killed 114 people.