Shockey Roots

SALEM – Attorney Robert R. “Bob” Melnick, 58, was killed Sunday night outside Toledo in an accident on the Ohio Turnpike. When the accident occurred, he was returning from Reserve duty in the Chicago area, where he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps, in the 91st LOD. Two of his sons, Isaac and Joel, have also recently been serving with the military in Afghanistan.
Attorney Melnick was preceded in death in 2001 by his father, Attorney Arseny Melnick, with whom he practiced law for many years in Youngstown, under the firm Melnick and Melnick.
Bob was a 1978 magna cum laude graduate of Hiram College and a 1981 graduate of Ohio Northern University Law School. In the military, he was also a graduate of the Judge Advocate General Basic and Advanced Courses and the Command and General Staff College. He earned the Army Achievement Medal, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal and other awards.
He was a member of the Mahoning County Bar Association and the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was a member of the Old North Church and also attended the Salem Bible Church. He was a man of deep faith in God, who loved the Word of God, and who was also deeply dedicated to serving his country.
Melnick participated in the Alliance Defending Freedom legal organization and earlier founded the Rutherford Institute of Ohio, a former branch of the Rutherford Institute based in Virginia. He also sat on the boards or advised numerous Christian ministries and churches. From 1986 to 1988, he served as Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Mahoning County.
Melnick was a very experienced litigator, with extensive expertise across many fields of law, including personal injury law, insurance defense, administrative law, probate, school law, bankruptcy, non-profit corporations, and related areas. Two of his favorite specialties included military law and religious liberty law. He was sought after for his experience in military law, and was well-known throughout the state as a strong defender of religious liberty, especially the rights of home schooling families.
He served on a state committee that recommended the draft law for home schooling in Ohio and also served as an appellate attorney for key home schooling cases in Ohio, with the Home School Legal Defense Association. At the time of his death, he was compiling a handbook on home schooling in Ohio. One of his best known cases involved proficiency testing, which he successfully argued before the Ohio Supreme Court in Rea vs. Ohio Department of Education (1998). Melnick participated in many case law issues around the country related to religious freedom. He truly loved the law and was devoted to Youngstown.
He leaves his wife, Diana; sons Joshua, Joel, Isaac, and Abraham John (A.J.); daughter Melissa; his mother, Gladys, 90, of Boardman; brother Arseny James (Jim) Melnick (Karen) of Fredericksburg, Va.; sister Anne Marie Phipps (John) of Rockwood, Pa.; and numerous extended family.

Burial will be at Tod Cemetery.

Source: The Becker Funeral Homes 22 Oct 2014