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Marcia Zarley Taylor, 61, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., formerly of Haddonfield, N.J., died Feb. 19, from breast cancer.

Taylor was born March 10, 1955 in Des Moines, Iowa. She was an internationally recognized agribusiness journalist. She was executive editor of DTN/Progressive Farmer and previously worked as an editor for Farm Journal and Successful Farming magazines. She was a former president of the American Agricultural Editor’s Association and was set to become North American Agricultural Journalists Association’s new president this spring.

She graduated summa cum laude in 1977 from Iowa State University with degrees in journalism and agronomy. During her 40-year career, she won nearly every agribusiness award for news, feature, and editorial writing, including the AAEA Oscar in Agriculture, AAEA Writer of the Year, and two-time NAAJ Glen Cunningham Writer of the Year.

Taylor was a champion of family-owned farms and led the nation in covering the looming financial and personal pitfalls of farm families working to create workable estate plans for their farms. She was the first journalist to recognize the issues the current Affordable Care Act caused for many rural farm families.