Mike McQueen, a journalist raised in Coconut Grove whose long career included three stints at The Miami Herald, has died. He was 52.

McQueen died Sunday in New Orleans of complications from cancer and congestive heart failure. He most recently worked as the Associated Press' bureau chief for Louisiana and Mississippi.

In his three decades of journalism, McQueen was a managing editor of The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, an assistant city editor at the Herald and head of the journalism department at Florida International University.

He worked with two different newspapers covering two of the most catastrophic natural disasters in recent American history, Hurricane Andrew in Miami-Dade and Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Miss. Both times, those teams earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

``He was just a fabulous journalist and had an unbelievable capacity for work and loved the craft,'' said Rick Hirsch, The Miami Herald's senior editor for multimedia. In the newsroom, which McQueen first joined in 1984, he was known as a magnetic personality and an effective communicator. His deep voice and loud laugh could ease tension at staff meetings, and he was a trusted sage among his colleagues.

Those attributes also made him an effective professor, said Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, dean of FIU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Students loved hearing about his reporting experiences, she said.

``He infused the newsroom into the classroom,'' Kopenhaver said.

Michael Anthony McQueen was born Nov. 3, 1956, in Jacksonville, and raised in Coconut Grove. He was a tennis player at Coral Gables High School, where he worked on the school newspaper.

He graduated from Florida State University and received a master's degree in communications from Florida Atlantic University. In 1977, he landed his first full-time journalism job at The Tallahassee Democrat. He was reporter for The Associated Press when the Liberty City riots broke out in 1980, and he returned to Miami to cover them. After a press conference, he met a Miami News reporter named Glenda Wright. She thought he was a good-looking guy with a nice sense of humor. Soon after, she discovered his investigative skills.

``He called my editor and asked if I was single,'' she said. And she was. They married in 1981.

They had two children, Michael II and Otto. The older son was killed in 2006. His roommate, a fellow former U.S. Army Ranger with whom he served in Afghanistan, was convicted of murder and received 35 years in prison.

``That pained him until the day he died,'' Glenda McQueen said. Five years ago, he was diagnosed with heart failure. He had just gotten optimistic about his prospects for survival but was then diagnosed with lung cancer. On his last day, Mike McQueen did not eat and could not speak. He looked at Glenda in his hospital bed and motioned for her to sit by him. Then, he held her hand and fell asleep.

``Even when he couldn't talk,'' she said, ``he was still communicating.''

McQueen is survived by his wife; his son Otto of Thibodaux, La.; a younger brother, Christopher McQueen of Miami; and a sister, Nicole Brewton of Pembroke Pines. A funeral service is scheduled for Friday in New Orleans. The South Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which McQueen headed from 1999 to 2000, plans to establish a scholarship in his name.