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Who’s feeling great after Week 8? FOOTBALL SECTION INSIDE
GRUB HUB MAKES A STOP IN MORRISON LOCAL, A3
DIXON | VETERANS MEMORIAL POOL
Skate park proposal questioned Pool renovation supporters: Don’t take ‘jackhammers’ to facility BY BRENDEN WEST bwest@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5529 @BWest_SVM
DIXON – When Steve Wilson presented his idea to transform the former Veterans Memorial Pool into a skate park last month, he said he knew it would make some people unhappy. This week, he met some of that resistance. Colleen Brechon and Marilyn Trulock are two volunteers who have spent years raising funds to restore the pool. They questioned Wilson
during a Dixon Park Board meeting Wednesday why none of his ideas were brought to them first. “I was personally disappointed that someone had not contacted us,” Brechon said. “There are a lot of people in the community that have worked very well for keeping the pool as a pool.” Both were previously part of Pool Partners, a group that worked to raise funds to restore the pool Ronald Reagan dedicated in 1950. An advisory petition to fund a pool renovating failed in 2007, and since its closure in 2000, it has been vacant.
Park board members say it’s starting to deteriorate. Wilson is a co-founder of Project GenNex, which aims to develop a community youth center. He said his group hopes to get a professional engineer’s opinion of the pool facility. He’s spoken with city building official Paul Shiras about obtaining permits. And he’s spoken to Park Board officials about GenNex becoming a self-sustaining funding mechanism of the Dixon Park District. SKATE PARK CONTINUED ON A4
SVM file photo
Steve Wilson, director of Loveland Community House, on Sept. 23 proposed repurposing Veterans Memorial Pool in Dixon as a skate park.
FUELING UP FOR MORE WORK ON THE FARM
THE PEOPLE’S VOICE christopher HEIMERMAN Heimerman is the Night News Editor at Sauk Valley Media. He can be reached at cheimerman@ saukvalley.com or 800-798-4085, ext. 5523.
Dixon’s prodigal son didn’t wander far
T
Philip Marruffo/pmarruffo@saukvalley.com
Mark Fassler fills up his combine with fuel at the end of a day of harvesting corn with his brother, Tim, on Friday on a farm on Mound Hill Road between Sterling and Dixon. The two have finished harvesting soybeans and will spend the next few weeks harvesting corn.
THE TWIN CITIES | BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH
Staying strong Thankful for her checkup, Rock Falls woman lucky to find cancer early BY JERMAINE PIGEE jpigee@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5525 @JPigee84
ROCK FALLS – Despite her breast cancer, Tanaya Cook is feeling lucky. Cook had a regular checkup in February, and everything looked OK. Because she had just turned 40, though, she also decided to get a mammogram. “They saw a spot right away,” she said. “I came back and I had a second mammogram ... and they saw the same thing.” Cook was diagnosed with breast cancer on April 21. She was given fewer than 24 hours to decide whether to have her left breast removed completely.
Sunny
VOLUME 8 ISSUE 7 52 Pages
Today: 53/31 For the forecast, see Page A10
Inside story
Information about the Touchdown for Tatas event Oct. 24. Page A2 A portion of her breast and some lymph nodes were removed the next day. What followed was 30 rounds of radiation at Northern Illinois Cancer Treatment Center in Dixon; that ended in July. Today, she’s at stage 0. “The best thing my doctor said to me was the cancer is survivable because it was caught early,” she said. “If I hadn’t made that appointment to get that mammogram, I might not be here.” STRONG CONTINUED ON A2
Business
Some smaller Chinese cities built big theme parks, but few visitors came. See Page C1
Photo submitted
Tanaya Cook, of Rock Falls, was diagnosed with breast cancer April 21. Here she poses for a photo she posted to her Facebook page using the Rosie the Riveter power pose. A pink ribbon painted on her bicep, and a scar from her surgery, are prominent.
Community Who knew you could carve a jack-o’-lantern with a weed whacker? Scott Norman, that’s who. Photos of Norman in action appear inside. See Page C12
here’s this lament: Smalltown kids go off to college, and they never come back, save for the occasional holiday. Ryan Marshall nearly became another such statistic. A recent graduate, he’d come home to Dixon and became a shareholder in Marshall Salon Services, the business his father, Jim, spent 20 years building into a major player in the cosmetics industry. Jim was the president, his sister, Robin, the VP. Ryan’s uncle, Tom, sister, Jessi, and cousin, Kasey, were all shareholders. “We joked that board meetings were Christmas and Thanksgiving,” he said. But a bigger player, L’Oréal, bought out the company. Jessi, 34 and Kasey hung tough in the industry, and are players in their own right today. Jessi is director of industry events and education for the Professional Beauty Association, and travels “all over the world,” in Ryan’s words. Kasey still works for L’Oréal. Ryan, on the other hand? “I call it a hostile takeover, because I was hostile – I was a pain in the ass,” he said. “I didn’t want to work for L’Oréal. I’d just graduated from college, came home to work for the company, and it was gone in a year.” PEOPLE’S VOICE CONTINUED ON A9
Index Births................ C5
Lottery .............. A2
Business........... C1
Markets .......... A11
Classified .......... B6
Obituaries ......... A4
Comics ............. A8
Opinion............. A6
Community ..... C12
Scoreboard ...... B5
Crossword Saturday ......... B11
Scrapbook ....... C3
Crossword Sunday ............. C8
Support groups .. C5
Dave Ramsey ... C1
Weather.......... A10
Dear Abby ........ C6
Wheels ........... B12
Sports .............. B1 Travel .............. C10