MASSILLON, Ohio — When Lori Lightfoot takes the oath of office as mayor of the big city of Chicago, the little city of Massillon will be watching.
Massillon in Stark County -- 44th largest city in Ohio -- has given Chicago its new political leader.
We visited the Massillon house in which Lightfoot grew up. Her mother beams about her youngest child winning in Chicago at age 56.
The house on Massillon's Main Avenue is filled with family photographs. In them is the girl who left Massillon for college and then found a career in public life, government, law, and politics. She is the first black woman and openly gay leader of Chicago.
"It was her goal," Ann Lightfoot told us. "She said someday I'm going to be in a position that I will be able to offer everybody the same thing."
So for the woman elected mayor of Chicago will know celebrations among her supporters. And certainly celebrations and pride in Stark County, Ohio. It is there the road to the third largest city's mayor's office began.
A Massillon woman found the pathway to the highest political post in the Windy City.