LF_061418

LakeForestLeader.com LIFE & ARTS
the lake forest leader | June 14, 2018 | 21
LF, LB join forces in Law Enforcement Torch Run
NEIL MILBERT
Freelance Reporter
It was an unseasonably
cool summer morning in
Lake County on Sunday,
June 10. It was foggy and
rain fell intermittently.
Eleven adults and a boy
who’d just completed kindergarten
paid no heed to
either the weather or the
hilly and winding terrain
they encountered on Sheridan
Road as they traveled
about 4.1 miles from the
Lake Bluff/Lake Forest
border to the Fort Sheridan
train station on the corner
of Old Elm Road.
They were participating
in the sixth leg of the
Law Enforcement Torch
Run for Special Olympics,
and their mission was to
support the Illinois Special
Olympics by raising
awareness and providing
funding for athletic competition
for adults and
children suffering from
various disabilities.
For “about 15-plus
years” Police Commander
Rick Anderson has been
heading the Lake Forest
team and fittingly he carried
the torch.
Other runners were his
fellow Lake Force Police
officers Ben Grum, Tim
Gehring, Matt Signa and
Barrett Weadick; city employees
Jamie Nixon and
Amber Campbell; Eric
Krueger of the Lake Forest
Parks and Recreation
Department; and two Lake
Bluff sisters home on vacation
from college, Gabriela
Gendek of the University
of Illinois in Champaign/
Urbana and Nina Gendek
of the University of Illinois/Springfield.
Seated in the stroller that
Grum was pushing was his
1-year-old son, Lincoln,
Participants battle the fog and rain during the run.
and riding a bicycle near
the head of the pack for the
entire route was his 6-yearold
son, Ryland, the recent
kindergarten graduate.
Also traveling by bicycle
was Police Officer
Andy Shiu.
“We all stick together
and finish together,” said
Grum, who works as a
special resource officer
and detective. “I’ve been
doing this for six or seven
years and now my boys are
doing it with me.”
The Gendek sisters are
examples of the effectiveness
of the awareness aspect
of the Torch Run.
“We found out about it
in the paper, we saw it was
a good cause and decided
to do it,” said Gabriela.
Running the preceding
leg through Lake Bluff
to the Lake Forest border
were Lake Bluff Police
Officers, Andrew Belanger,
Lisa Malkov and
Matt Smizinski, and Greg
Mendoza from the Highland
Park Police Department.
This was the first day of
the annual relay in Illinois
and it began in the early
morning hours.
According to Commander
Anderson, the
starting point was Winthrop
Harbor on the Illinois
side of the state line
with Wisconsin and the
relay continued southward
all the way to Chicago.
It took the Lake Forest
team about 40 minutes to
reach the Fort Sheridan
train station. There the
torch was passed to another
team made up mainly of
law enforcement officers
from Highwood and Highland
Park and the run continued.
A total of 23 legs will be
run in the state before the
torch arrives in Normal for
the opening ceremony of
the Illinois Special Olympics
Summer Games on
June 15.
Illinois is one of many
Matt Signa, a Lake Forest Police Officer, prepares to participate in the annual
Law Enforcement Torch Run Sunday, June 10 in Lake Forest. PHOTOS BY Ernest
Schweit/22nd Century Media
Participants pose for a photo at the end of the 4.1 mile run, which raised awareness
and money for Special Olympics.
states that have a Law Enforcement
Torch Run for
Special Olympics.
The Torch Run was born
in 1981 and its founding
father was Police Chief
Richard La Munyon of
Wichita, Kansas.
Two years later he presented
the program to the
International Association
of Chiefs of Police (IACP)
and won the endorsement
of that organization. With
the support of the IACP
the Law Enforcement
Torch Run has become the
largest public awareness
and fund-raising arm of
the Special Olympics.
Grum pointed out that
the run itself is one of several
Torch Run programs
the Lake Forest police participate
in.
“We do the polar plunges,
coffee with the cop at
Dunkin’ Donuts and a variety
of other things and
we sell T-shirts and hats,”
he said. “It involves more
people than just those of
us who are with the police
department. Sometimes
we will have firemen and
various city employees
participating and sometimes
members of our
families.”