Loeb winner Miller dies at 78

Tom Miller, a West Virginia journalist whose series on absentee land ownership in the state won a Loeb Award, died Saturday at the age of 78.

Brad McIlhenny of Metro News writes, “Miller’s 1975 series ‘Who Owns West Virginia,’ which explored dominant absentee land ownership, earned national recognition by winning the Gerald Loeb Award in 1975 for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. The series is still cited by state journalists as an example of deep reporting on a complicated but crucial issue.

“‘That was a pretty ambitious investigative piece before those things were the fashion,’ Dawson said.

“Miller, who grew up in Lincoln County, started at the Huntington Advertiser, when the city had an afternoon newspaper. After the city’s newspapers were combined, Miller became a political reporter for the Herald-Dispatch and became a West Virginia journalistic mainstay.

“‘I’m proud to have worked with him and even prouder to have had him as a friend,’ said James Casto, a peer who served as editorial page editor for the Herald-Dispatch.”

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