Former mayor and local news writer dies at age 62

“Often duplicated, never imitated.”

That’s how Victor Milani often described himself, said his sister Pam Milani, and how he will be remembered. 

Milani, 62, died Friday at his Northfield home. 

“He was one of a kind,” Pam Milani said. “His focus in his life was his community and his kids.” 

Longtime elected official dies:Summit County Council Representative Jerry Feeman dies at 66

A Nordonia High School graduate, Victor Milani helped start The News Leader, which was first published in 1983, along with his sister Kim Masseria, who predeceased him. Pam Milani said running the newspaper “was a family affair.”

“In reading some of Vic’s old articles, I was amazed with how well he wrote, something he’d been doing since he was a teenager,” she said. “He had no formal training in writing or journalism — as he listed his education as ‘the school of hard knocks.’ He had a natural gift for it. He’d also said ‘in life, it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up.'”

The biggest inspiration for Milani, his sister said, was their father Arch Milani, who died in 2016. The elder Milani also was in the news business.

The Milani family ran The News Leader until 1986, when it was purchased by Record Publishing Co. (Record Publishing was sold to GateHouse in 2017. The company merged with Gannett two years later under the Gannett name.)