Accomplished longtime radio broadcaster and Dunkirk native, Van Miller passed away, Saturday at the age of 87.

Prior to his tenure as the Bills broadcaster, he got his start with WBEN radio and television network calling high school sports. Miller called Bills games from 1960-1970 and again from 1978-2003. He also called Buffalo Braves NBA games and served as the sports director for WIVB-TV.

In 2008, Miller began “The Hometown Hero Scholarship Fund Golf Tournament” which has raised over $200,000. Each year two students from Dunkirk High School are awarded scholarships of $2,000 each coming from both the fund and donations from Van and his wife Gloria Miller.

“I just want everyone to know he is one of the most beautiful people inside and out,” the original executive director of the Van Miller tourney Stephanie Pulvino said. “I wish everybody had the chance to know him. He would never talk about himself, it was always about what the scholarship winners were going to do. He and his wife would always come down for a couple days for the tournament and do whatever they could to help out.”

Due to his declining health, Miller was unable to attend his tournament this year for the first time ever, but was certainly not forgotten.

“There wasn’t a brighter guy I’ve known than Van Miller,” Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame head coach Marv Levy said during an interview with the OBSERVER in June during the Van Miller tournament. “The last time I talked to him his voice wasn’t as strong and he wasn’t as mobile as he was before. But he still had that great sense of humor and he was still very warm-hearted, liked by everybody he knew and that includes me.”

Even since being given the prestigious title of the “Voice of the Bills,” Miller never forgot where he came from and was keen on giving back to his hometown.

“When Van flew home with the team from the west coast he would always point out Dunkirk as his hometown to whoever he was talking to,” continued Pulvino. “He was one of Dunkirk’s own, one of Dunkirk’s finest.”

In 2008, Miller was honored by the naming of the road alongside the Dunkirk High School football field Van Miller Way. The city of Dunkirk has presented Miller with his own day and he earned a spot in the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. Along with these prestigious local honors, he has been inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1998, the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 1999, was presented the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004 and in 2014, was finally named to the Buffalo Bills Wall of fame.

Miller was known for calling some of the Bills biggest moments and called 605 games in his 35 years with the team.

Some of the most memorable games in Bills’ history were voiced by Miller including both AFL Championship wins, all four AFC Championship seasons and perhaps one of the most recognizable games in sports, the Comeback Game, in which the Bills rallied from a 32-point deficit to defeat the Houston Oilers.

“Everybody would turn up the volume on the radio to hear Van,” Pulvino recalled watching Bills games. “They would turn down the guys on TV and turn up the radio.”

Comments on this article may be sent to editorial@observertoday.com