MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - George Moses, a longtime Minnesota bureau chief of the Associated Press known for calling John F. Kennedy the winner in the 1960 presidential race, died Saturday night at his home in Montana, his daughter said. He was 91.

Moses died in his sleep, three days after fracturing his hip in a fall, Sue Moses said.

During his two decades overseeing the AP in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, Moses covered major stories, including the Beatles' 1965 concert at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

In the hotly contested 1960 presidential race, Moses called Minnesota for Kennedy, putting him over the top in the AP's count of electoral votes and electing the Democrat over Republican Richard M. Nixon.

According to the AP's count, Kennedy had 261 electoral votes the morning after the election - just shy of winning - with California, Illinois and Minnesota too close to call, writer Jim Klobuchar recalled in a 1970 Minneapolis Star column on Moses.

"Moses supervised the browbeating of county auditors to wring out a few more votes," wrote Klobuchar, who was an AP staffer in the Minneapolis bureau at the time.

Born in Minot, N.D., Moses attended the University of Minnesota, where he won the annual Northwest Daily Press Association Scholarship as the outstanding junior in the journalism department from 1935-36.

Moses began his career at the Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune in 1937 and joined AP in Bismarck as a reporter in 1940. After joining the Army in World War II and rising to the rank of captain, he returned to the AP after being honorably discharged and became Bismarck correspondent for AP in 1946.

Moses transferred to the Minneapolis bureau in 1950 and was appointed bureau chief less than a month later. His hearing damaged by exposure to artillery fire in the military, a problem made worse by the noisy teletype printers used by AP then, Moses retired in 1970 to teach journalism at Macalester College in St. Paul. He chaired Macalester's journalism program until 1980, retiring to a home alongside a trout stream in Nye, in southwestern Montana.

"He forced you to love the language. He forced you to respect the language. And he gave you an awfully good appreciation of journalism. It was clearly more than just a job to him," Howard Sinker, state/enterprise editor at the Star Tribune who took classes from Moses in the 1970s, said.

As AP bureau chief, Moses - a bald, paternal-looking man - was known for his elegant writing style, his friendliness and openness to staffers and his sense of humor.

"I viewed him almost as a father figure. He was someone you could always go to to discuss anything, and he always listened," Minneapolis AP newswoman Karren Mills said.

Moses also kept his hand in writing, covering everything from the opening of the Guthrie Theater in 1963 to the Minnesota Twins' first game at Met Stadium in 1961. While visiting an AP member newspaper in southern Minnesota, Moses reported on a snowstorm in flawless style, Mills said.

The Minneapolis AP's staffer of the year award, begun in 1978, is named after Moses.

When Moses was bureau chief, the Minnesota AP editors association would pass a resolution at its annual meeting that would thank the AP staff and "thank God we have Moses to lead us out of the wilderness," retired AP newsman Gene Lahammer recalled.

Moses was preceded in death by his wife of 59 years, Lucile, who died last October. Survivors include their four daughters and 13 grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled Thursday in Absarokee, Mont., with a service also planned later in Minneapolis.