WINCHESTER — Vic Bradshaw, a former awarding-winning reporter for The Winchester Star and Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, died unexpectedly this week at age 57.

His sister, Andrea Bradshaw, said it appears he suffered a fatal heart attack while home alone in Harrisonburg. Police do not suspect foul play, she said.

Vic Bradshaw served two tenures at the Daily News-Record — as a business reporter from 2000 to 2003 and again from June 2014 to June of this year. He covered Winchester government for The Star from November 2009 to June 2014. Both papers were owned by the Byrd family until April, when the publishing business was sold to Ogden Newspapers.

Bradshaw started his journalism career as a sports writer for the Martinsville Bulletin and The Daily Progress in Charlottesville. He also reported for the Frederick News-Post in Maryland and worked as an editor at The Island Packet in South Carolina. Most recently, he was doing freelance writing, editing and public relations.

Andrea Bradshaw said her brother wanted to work in the newspaper industry from the time he was a boy growing up in Spotsylvania. While still in school, he wrote hospital notes for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, but that ended when he slipped the name of a professional wrestler into a report just to see if anyone was paying attention.

“That was his sense of humor,” Andrea Bradshaw said.

Former Winchester City Council member Art Major remembered Vic Bradshaw’s sense of humor and how he would lighten tense situations with funny comments.

“He was a great person,” Major said. “He really cared about getting the story right and getting everyone’s perspective.”

That sentiment was echoed by current Winchester City Council member John Willingham, who was council president during Bradshaw’s tenure at The Star.

“I always thought Vic was a reporter’s reporter,” Willingham said, explaining that Bradshaw excelled in every subject he covered. “He was fair, tough and asked very good questions so he would understand the issues.”

“Vic was everything you would want in a journalist,” said Winchester Star Managing Editor Cynthia Cather Burton. “He was tenacious, painstakingly thorough and conscientious. There wasn’t a story he couldn’t handle.”

“His work was always great,” said Daily News-Record Editor Jeremy Hunt. “He was our best reporter, incredibly reliable.”

Bradshaw’s mother, Beth Bradshaw, fondly recalled her son as “a hot mess.”

“He loved people — he got that from me,” she said. “He talked a lot — he got that from me.”

As a boy, Beth Bradshaw said, her son was inquisitive and playful. He grew up to become a voracious reader who retained everything he learned.

“He knew all the answers of ‘Jeopardy,’” she said.

Vic Bradshaw enjoyed playing football, basketball and baseball in his youth. As an adult, his encyclopedic knowledge of sports helped him forge a friendship with Major.

“He would mostly talk and I would mostly listen,” Major said with a laugh. “He liked to talk, but that was OK because the guy was amusing.”

“He talked to everyone,” Hunt said. “I don’t think there were any people in the building who didn’t know him.”

Beth Bradshaw said her son made frequent visits home to Spotsylvania to visit family and friends. When he did, he always made a point to visit people who were shut-ins.

When one of his friends died, his mother said, he wrote the obituary. The family mailed him a check for his services, which he donated to the hospice organization that had cared for his friend.

“He was just amazing, he really was,” Beth Bradshaw said.

Andrea Bradshaw said she spoke with her brother on Saturday, and he said he wasn’t feeling well. She called the next day to check on him but got his voice mail. He did not return her message.

When he missed an appointment on Monday, a friend asked police to check on him. He was found dead in his apartment Monday evening.

Bradshaw is survived by his mother and sister. His father, Melvin Bradshaw, died Nov. 28, 2013.

Funeral arrangements were still being finalized Thursday afternoon by Covenant Funeral Service in Fredericksburg, but Andrea Bradshaw said she anticipates holding services Sunday afternoon at her brother’s boyhood church, Wilderness Baptist Church in Spotsylvania County.

“Vic was just a good guy who will be missed by those who had the privilege of knowing him,” Burton said.