Family plans 121st reunion

The Osborne-Miller family includes politicians, judges, industrialists, educators -- even a presidential adviser.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Members of the Osborne-Miller family make up a virtual who's who of the Mahoning Valley.
The family's history is filled with politicians, judges, industrialists and educators. For the 121st consecutive year, the family will get together for a reunion at noon Aug. 18 at Boardman Township Park. Family members will travel from Nebraska, Michigan and throughout Ohio to the reunion.
The reunion has moved over the years from the Canfield Fairgrounds to Mill Creek Park to Boardman Township Park, but the date is always the same: the third Saturday in August.
Those getting together for the reunion are the direct descendants of William Henry Miller, who died in 1927 at the age of 86, and Mary Alice Osborne, who died in 1925 at the age of 74. The two had 11 children.
But the family's ties to the Mahoning Valley go back even further. Nicholas Osborne, originally from England, was an early settler in the Valley, moving here in 1804.
"We had quite a few members of the family associated with public life," said Stan Miller of Youngstown, a grandson of the Miller's fourth-oldest child, Wesley. "Our history in Youngstown is very, very prominent."
Among the names of note in the family are: Clyde Osborne, a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge and prosecutor; Levi Osborne, who helped organize the Mahoning County Republican Party, and Jonathan A. Osborne, a 19th-century Trumbull County commissioner.
Advisor to Reagan: Stan Miller has his own political history. He had a 20-plus-year association with Ronald Reagan dating back to before the former president's days as California's governor. Miller met Reagan, who was a sports announcer at the time, in the mid-'60s on a Sacramento golf course through a mutual friend.
Miller served as Reagan's bodyguard and driver and helped coordinate his gubernatorial campaigns. When Reagan went to the White House, Miller went with him, serving on the presidential task force.
"I protected him, I drove him around, I did just about everything that went on," said Miller, who was not with Reagan when John Hinckley Jr. shot the president March 30, 1981.
Although Miller did not agree with Reagan's politics 100 percent of the time, he said the former president "was one of the finest men I've ever met. As far as being an honest, true, loving human being, he's one of the best I ever met."
skolnick@vindy.com