🌱 Oak Park Man Charged With Murder + OPRF Students Publish Book

Good morning, Oak Park and River Forest! Here's your five-minute guide to the Sunday news.

First, today's weather: Mostly sunny; breezy, milder. High: 48 Low: 35.

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Here are the top 3 stories today in Oak Park-River Forest:

1. An Oak Park man was arrested Friday for the January murder of a Forest View nursing student, according to Chicago police. Richard Chavez faces first-degree murder charges in the strangling of 20-year-old Charisma Ehresman, who was found dead in Austin after being reported missing last month. (NBC)

2. An anthology of spoken word poems written by Oak Park and River Forest High School students was released Feb. 1. Featured on NPR this week, “Respect the Mic: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School” aims to “take this power of poetry and move it beyond the Oak Park classroom.” (NPR)

3. Olympic bronze medal winner Emery Lehman told Wednesday Journal he plans to return to Oak Park this April after competing in two upcoming competitions. “I very much look forward to coming home, sharing my medal with people and trying to recruit some future Olympians and medalists for speedskating,” he said. (Wednesday Journal)

Today in Oak Park-River Forest:

• Follow the Olympic trail at Trailside Museum. (9 a.m.)
• Ascension Catholic Church hosts a food drive for St. Martin de Porres food pantry. (10:30 a.m.)
• Learn about the Black History of Early West African Civilizations with Oak Park Public Library. (1 p.m.)
• River Forest Township and the library host Dr. Ada Cheng in conversation about anti-Asian racism during the pandemic. (2 p.m.)
• Forest Park Public Library presents “To the Women Who Shaped Us: Memory and Storytelling through Textile Arts.” (2 p.m.)

From my notebook:

• The Jazz Thaw will return to downtown Oak Park on March 12. (DOP)
• Oak Park Public Library hired former OPRF High School Outreach Coordinator Latonia Jackson as its new Teen Services Manager. (OPPL)
• A historic Queen Anne style home on Kenilworth Avenue with connections to Frank Lloyd Wright is now on the market. (Wednesday Journal)

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That's all for today! I'll be back in your inbox tomorrow with more local stories.

— Georgi Presecky

About me: Georgi is a Chicago-based newsletter writer and partner content curator. She spent five years on the entertainment beat for FF2 Media covering film festivals across the U.S. Her feature articles have been recognized with awards from the Illinois Women's Press Association and National Federation of Press Women. As editor-in-chief of the Lewis University newspaper, she and her staff earned honors from the Associated Collegiate Press and American Scholastic Press Associations. She began working for Patch in 2019.