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Ambrose
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used to serve as barracks. He taught there for 30 years, becoming the most famous and influential faculty member at the school, a colleague said yesterday.
?I remember vividly when he came to the university as a young teacher of history,? said colleague Homer Hitt, himself a founding chancellor at LSUNO. ?I remember him as a young professor with long hair that at times he wore braided. He walked around campus with a dog following. Often, he would wear a leather jacket.?
After a couple of years, Ambrose earned his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin and soon after, began to write.
?He began to be published right away,? said Hitt. ?And moved to prominence quickly. Along the way, he was transformed into a conservative professor with a regular appearance.?
Ambrose found widespread recognition in 1994 with his first bestseller, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. Several more bestsellers, including Band of Brothers, later made into a television series, propelled Ambrose?s career to the top.
He rubbed elbows with the rich and famous, but is remembered locally as a man who rode his bicycle around town, often with his sand-colored	yellow
Labrador retriever Pomp in tow.
?He was a regular member and came to work out as often as he could when he wasn?t traveling,? said J.E. Loiacano, owner of Loiacano Health Club, and whose daughter is married to Ambrose?s son. ?He was interested in health and came here regularly until about a month before he became very ill. He would many times ride his bike over in the mornings and bring his dog Pomp along.?
?He will be missed ... not just here but all over the country,? said Loiacano. ? He did so much as a historian and was very much loved by family and friends. It was amazing to see how much he was loved as family and friends spoke at the service saying so many wonderful things.?
Ambrose worked in his office above the garage of the Beach Blvd. home that he and his wife Moira shared. It was a place of creativity, somewhat cluttered, furnished plainly, with various memorabilia scattered throughout. He and Moira often rode their bicycles along the beach with Pomp, sometimes stopping into Da Beach House.
?There?s so much I remember,? said owner Colleen Read. ?His coming here to lunch on a regular basis with Moira ... he was always a pleasure to see and very supportive of our efforts. When we were designing the outside of our building he came by and wrote down his name and phone number on the design plans, saying he wanted to be the first to sign up to help. ?We met under rather funny circumstances. We had just moved back here from Hawaii and were driving down the beach. I had a lab who was ready to breed and I saw this beautiful lab running down the beach with a couple riding on bicycles. I stopped and ajked if Pomp was availaBre~toT>e a father. He wasn?t, but we talked and afterward we would see Stephen and Moira riding by and we would all wave.?
Later, Ambrose kept a date to speak at Da Beach House, though he had already learned of his illness. ?It was amazing to see him in such a small town place reading from his books and talking,? said Read. ?He commanded respect; it was an aura about him, though he knew
about his illness, he came with great stature and carried on.I loved his humanity and was honored to be a part of it. When you looked out and saw him ride by you somehow knew it was good to be here ... he loved it here ... a man who could have lived anywhere in the world he wanted, but he choose to be here.?
Locals recall famed author as a nice man with a big yellow dog
BY BENNIE SHALLBETTER
Staff Writer
He wasn?t really ours, but, we claimed him anyway. Having such a talented person in the community seemed to make us all feel just a little more special. When cancer took the life of famed historian and author Stephen Ambrose on Sunday, Bay St. Louis lost one of it?s most illustrious citizens. Ambrose was laid to rest at a private ceremony attended by family and close friends, on Wednesday morning.
Ambrose began a career -following after his father?s' footsteps - as a medical student at the University of Wisconsin, but soon found that he had an affinity for storytelling. And what makes better stories than history, as he learned from a professor at the university, who turned his history lessons into fascinating stories.
He became part of the pioneer faculty at what was then Louisiana State University at New Orleans when it opened on the grounds of an abandoned air station in buildings that
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