Hawley, Jean Gannett, PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- Jean Gannett Hawley, a powerful influence in Maine media, died yesterday [9/4/1994] after a brief illness. She was 70. Gannett Hawley, publisher and chairman of the board of Guy Gannett Communications, sustained a 40-year career in newspapers, radio and television after she inherited control of the company from her father Guy Patterson Gannett, in 1954. Under her direction, Guy Gannett Communications -- formerly Guy Gannett Publishing Co. -- expanded and diversified its holdings and now operates daily and weekly newspapers, television stations, multi-tenant broadcast towers and computer interactive retailing kiosks in seven states. The company, which employs 1,700, includes the Portland Press Herald, the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal, the Central Maine Morning Sentinel, and WGME-TV. Jean Gannett was born in Augusta on Jan. 16, 1924, and started her career in newspaper advertising after graduating from Bradford Junior College in Bradford, Mass., where she majored in music and played the harp. Her career began with the firm Julius Matthews Special Agency in New York, but she returned the next year to Portland where she was named national advertising manager of the Guy Gannett Publishing Co. In 1953, she was named executive vice president and was responsible for the company's daily newspapers which she found challenging, in part, because he was a woman in a man's world. But she prevailed and demonstrated her resolve on key matters, a characteristic that marked her business style for the rest of her life. She made significant changes in the company's management in 1959, putting her own professional management team in place. A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Grace Episcopal Church in Bath. Burial will be in Oak Grove Cemetery in Bath.