City Commissioner makes strides after stroke

DAYTON — City Commissioner Dean Lovelace walks slowly into City Hall, concentrating on each step, occasionally reaching for the wall to balance himself. As he walks, he smiles.

He is grateful to be there.

“This was one of those giants in my life that I had to face,” he said.

Lovelace’s left leg is stiff. He says it feels heavy. His left arm rests on his chest with his hand in a fist as it has since Sept. 13, 2008, the day a stroke nearly ended his life.

“Doctors told me they didn’t think he would make it,” said Phyllis Lovelace, his wife of 41 years. “The bottom line, they didn’t know Dean. They didn’t know us.”

Lovelace, now 63, spent three weeks in intensive care at Miami Valley Hospital, another two in a regular hospital room. Months of physical therapy followed. The left-hander trained himself to write with his right hand. He coaxed his nerve-damaged leg to move again.

“I was impatient. Things didn’t happen fast enough for me,” Lovelace said. “I was determined to walk. I just didn’t know how long it would take.”

Lovelace reluctantly retired from the University of Dayton in May after a 25 year-career.

But after a lifetime of political activism, combating against predatory lending, promoting equal opportunities for minorities and working to reduce poverty, Lovelace refused to give up his work on behalf of the city.

He kept abreast of developments in Dayton from his hospital bed and began attending City Commission meetings regularly again in April.

Still, many in the community speculated whether the commissioner had the stamina to complete the final years of his fifth term, which expires in 2011.

It was a question he also had to answer for himself.

“After being back for six months, I think I can do it,” Lovelace said. “I plan to run for a sixth term. I have resolve.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2362 or josmith@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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