Brent Hackney, who as Gov. Jim Hunt's press secretary wrestled with his conscience and the views of his boss over the death penalty, was found dead Wednesday at his home in Southern Pines.

Details about his death were not immediately available. But Hackney, 57, a longtime North Carolina journalist, had dealt with complications of diabetes.

"Brent Hackney was one of the great people in this world and was a tremendous help to me during my first terms as governor," Hunt said in a statement. "He was honest as the day is long and had a sharp wit that serves a governor well when he is in office. I mourn Brent's passing, but am thankful for his rich life."

Hackney was something of a journalistic throwback, a chain-smoking and hard-drinking story teller, who loved politics, newspapers and a good joke.

He grew up in the small Moore County town of Robbins, the son of the high school principal. At one point, when the Edwards family rented the Hackney home, future U.S. Sen. John Edwards moved into Hackney's old room.

"He was fiercely loyal to his hometown of Robbins," said David Woronoff, publisher of The Pilot in Southern Pines, where Hackney worked for 17 years.

A 1966 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Hackney worked as a reporter for the Salisbury Post and The News & Record in Greensboro.

Hackney worked as deputy press secretary and then press secretary for Hunt from 1979 to 1985. He admired Hunt, but Hackney sometimes struggled with his job because he opposed the death penalty.

Hunt allowed the first executions in decades to go forward in 1984, when first James W. Hutchins and then Velma M. Barfield were put to death. The courts had ended a capital punishment hiatus of two decades.

"The question naturally arises as to whether it is intellectually or morally inconsistent for me to have been a fringe participant in the Hutchins and Barfield executions and to espouse opposition to capital punishment," Hackney wrote in a recent article submitted to The News & Observer. "Does that make me a hypocrite?

"I've reflected on that question a great deal in the past 20 years, and I don't believe so," Hackney concluded. "It was my responsibility to speak for the governor, to keep the press and public informed of what he was thinking, what he was saying and what his positions were. Hunt was the one elected governor of North Carolina and sworn to uphold the law. Nobody elected me to anything."

After Hunt left office, Hackney went to work as the opinion page editor for The Pilot in Southern Pines.

"He was an old school newspaperman," Woronoff said. "He could turn a phrase about as well as anybody."

He left the newspaper in 2003 to become a campaign spokesman for George Little, a Southern Pines friend and an unsuccessful GOP candidate for governor. Hackney also worked in public relations and for a literary magazine.

He is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Hackney of Robbins, and a sister, Sharon Bryson of Cary. Kennedy Funeral Home of Robbins is handling arrangements for the Hackney family. Funeral arrangements were incomplete Wednesday.