With municipal elections in April, in the coming weeks, the Review will profile candidates running for the Park District of Forest Park’s Board of Commissioners. The Review’s last issue focused on Tim Gillian, but this week’s is all about Sammiejo Oswalt. Next week, stay tuned for Maria “Betty” Alzamora’s profile.
Though Sammiejo Oswalt has considered running for the Park District of Forest Park’s Board of Commissioners for more than half her life, this is her first time throwing her hat in the ring.
Oswalt is a fourth-generation Forest Park resident. Her great grandfather owned a store on Roosevelt Road during the Great Depression. Her grandfather had a brick company on Circle Avenue, and her dad worked for the Forest Park Police department for 30 years, serving as chief for some of them.
“As a family, we all still love to be a part of the community and be involved,” Oswalt said.
Oswalt, 33, has had previous jobs at the Howard Mohr Community Center, and, as a teenager, at the park district.
“To be on this board, I’ve wanted it since I was 15,” Oswalt said. Though she started attending or virtually watching park district board meetings last year, Oswalt was 15 when she started working summers at the park district’s concession stand and was shift supervisor from ages 19 to 22.
And every year since 2006, Oswalt has worked the No Glove Nationals softball tournament, where she’s an announcer and keeps statistics.
Today, Oswalt is a nurse at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago – a position she’s learned a lot from that will help her on the park board, if she’s elected her first time running.
“The more chaotic things get, the more relaxed I am,” Oswalt said, adding that there’s nothing to do during turbulent times other than put your head down and persevere. “Being in nursing, you really have to be diplomatic in dealing with many delicate situations. And a lot of the time, you’re dealing with people going through the most awful time of their life.”
Before she went to nursing school and after graduating from Triton College, Oswalt cared for her family at a time when her father was waiting for a liver transplant, her mom had a heart attack, and her grandmother, who lived with them, was on hospice.
Oswalt then worked for MedEx, an ambulance company that transports patients to appointments, not in emergency situations.
In her medical experience and career, Oswalt has learned how to be empathetic, patient and have challenging conversations.
“When you disagree with someone, it doesn’t have to be uncomfortable or a fight or an argument,” she said. “You can have a conversation about opposite opinions and not have it be a challenge,” Oswalt said.
“I’ve developed a mindset of no one person is one thing,” she added. “I love the diversity that everyone and everything can bring.”
If elected, Oswalt herself would bring more diversity to the park district board as someone who’s decades younger than most of the board.
“A younger perspective is just a different perspective,” Oswalt said, adding that current and past board members have done great work. “It’s not necessarily even that I’d want to change anything but add a little bit of my flair.”
If elected to the park district board, Oswalt has a few priorities she’d like addressed. One is offering free health care screenings.
“The best way to get ahead of medical issues is prevention,” Oswalt said.
She also is looking for new, unique ideas to include in park district programming, like when it hosted a drive-in movie at the Altenheim during Covid-19. She suggests adding rock climbing equipment or a zipline at the Altenheim, if possible.
Of the park district’s offerings, Oswalt said her favorite is No Glove Nationals, an event that’s deeply intertwined with the community.
During the 2022 No Glove Nationals tournament, Oswalt said some words to honor Jose “Pepe” Flores, a police officer who died the year before and was a big part of the softball community in Forest Park. Oswalt did the same for Dave Novak, former park district director, after he unexpectedly died last year (Oswalt’s sister Jen, who teaches at Garfield Elementary School, is Dave Novak’s daughter-in-law).
Oswalt said at this year’s No Glove Nationals tournament, she’ll likely pay tribute to Kate Scotty, a park district employee and No Glove volunteer who died last month.
“I feel very honored to have that platform to speak for those people in a space that meant so much to them,” Oswalt said.
Though their presence extends beyond No Glove Nationals.
“I have some very emotional moments when I think, ‘Dave would’ve loved this,’” Oswalt said of her park board candidacy. The swearing-in date for the park board is Novak’s birthday.
“He is just peppered throughout this entire experience,” Oswalt added. “At the end of the day, win or lose, it doesn’t dictate my standing in the park district or my association to No Gloves.”