W E D N E S D A Y
JOURNAL
May 9, 2018 Vol. 36, No. 20 ONE DOLLAR
LLonnie i BBunchh returns Journal talks with Smithsonian director
of Oak Park and River Forest
@oakpark @wednesdayjournal
Police chief needs liver transplant Ambrose remains on leave of absence By DAN HALEY
T
Publisher
ony Ambrose, Oak Park’s police chief, needs a liver transplant. Monday afternoon in a telephone interview, he said that while the “initial diagnosis was a shock” he didn’t expect, “I’ve always been a fighter. I set goals every day.” And the new goal is, “I’m going to beat it.” In late April, Village Manager Cara Pavlicek announced that Ambrose was taking a leave of absence. She appointed Deputy Chief LaDon Reynolds as interim chief. At the time Pavlicek did not reveal the reason for Ambrose’s leave, though she suggested the chief might be ready to talk about it this week. And he was on Monday, describing the intricate process of screening potential liver donors, how he is preparing mentally and physically for the hoped-for and anticipated transplant surgery, and his appreciation for the support he is receiving from the police department, village hall and the community. “It has been such a positive response,” he says. “People in the community have reached out. Please express my appreciation.” The specific type of liver disease Ambrose is battling is called nonalcoholic steatohepatitus or NASH. In most cases, patients are asymptomatic. That was true of Ambrose who See AMBROSE on page 6
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
A LOVED ONE LOST: Tyler Lumar’s mother, Lisa Alcorn (left), and grandmother, Linda Augustus, sit at the piano Lumar used to perform on. Alcorn says Lumar, who died late last month, “loved to entertain people.”
Remembering Tyler Lumar
Family, friends still picking up the pieces after Oak Parker’s death By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
Tyler Lumar was a singer and a dancer. He played baseball when he was a kid. He was the kind of person who liked to make you laugh. He went to Oak Park and River Forest High School. He had a daughter
and a girlfriend and a mother and a grandmother and a lot of other people who loved him. And if you never met Tyler Lumar, you never will. That’s because at the age of 24, he died. His family wants you to remember him and know what happened.
Lumar was arrested twice in 2016, first while trying to get medication for his debilitating asthma. He would have gone to his regular physician in Oak Park, his family explained, but his longtime doctor had died a few months prior, and Lumar See TYLER LUMAR on page 12