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7 A place of honor
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A local group has found a base of operations for honoring America’s soldiers, and now its members hope they can get some reinforcements from the community to help them with their plans for a military museum.
2023 Green Fees
14
A growing stable of businesses
Stuck truck? Need help under the hood? Got a load that needs to hit the road? Or maybe you just want to wet your whistle? The Dixon duo behind a trio of businesses can help.
22
Another round of golf
A Dixon golf course with more than a hundred years of history has a shot at a brighter future, thanks to a group committed to being partners in its success.
28
The power of the human connection
The owner of a Pilates studio has created a place where mindfulness and motion help people let go of their stress and take hold of their health and wellness.
Plus ... Where Is It — in Dixon? Page 5
2023 Green Fees
An occasional feature of Dixon Living highlighting local landmarks and locations off the beaten path. We’ll feature a photo and it’s up to you to guess where it was taken.
A sign of love and respect
The ball isn’t the only thing in her court, this sign is too. Seen from below in this photo, the sign reserves a spot for a Dixon icon who passed away in 2017.
Where is it?
Answer: Page 35.
They aren’t giving up.
They know their task is daunting and the road ahead may be long, but they’re on a mission — to bring a Veterans Memorial Park Museum to Dixon.
But like a soldier’s march to victory, reaching their goal comes one step at a time.
The museum would compliment its neighbor, Veterans Memorial Park, and would be the latest in a line of honors in the city that celebrate veterans’ service.
Veterans Memorial Park is an impressive site that greets visitors as they enter Dixon to the west with a collection of military gear, including an M60 battle tank and F-105D Thunderchief fighter-bomber; and one of the city’s signature attractions, Veterans Memorial Arch, stands tall and proud over Galena Avenue downtown, with roots dating back to World War I.
Those sights worth seeing would be in good company if the museum earns its stripes, and a local group is promoting its plan to see to it that it does.
The idea of the museum was conceived four years ago, and though progress has been slow, it’s been steady. Plans have been made, donations — both money and militaria — have come in, and a building has been acquired: the former home of Ron’s Automotive, next to Veterans Memorial Park.
MUSEUM cont’d to page 8
A group of local residents committed to honoring Americans’ service and sacrifice have something in common with the men and women who’ve defended our nation.
The park’s existing visitors center, the two-room Headquarters & Headquarters Co. building, has collected more than enough material to display in its two small rooms: uniforms, mortar rounds, helmets, honors and much more, but when Ron’s moved out of its space, Veterans Memorial Park commissioners saw an opportunity to do justice to their growing collection.
But turning a former auto repair shop into a museum is no small task. It takes money and work. Repairs and remodeling need to be done and upgrades need to be made to ensure items in the museum are preserved safely. It also takes time, but just how much is uncertain — it all depends on how long it takes to raise the money, park commissioner Roger Willey said.
“In order to preserve the artifacts right, you have to have humidity controls and have it in a specific range so that fabric doesn’t fall apart,” Willey said. “There’s a handful of specific things to a museum that we have to have, such as having the building insulated well enough.”
The museum and park are operated by a commission through the City of Dixon. Since the park opened in 2001, it’s raised thousands of dollars through donations, raffles, fundraisers and sales of memorial stones, money that’s gone for park upkeep and maintenance, with an eye toward future growth.
In August 2019, those eyes looked at the former auto shop and saw a museum, so $165,000 of those funds were given to the city to buy the building to use as a museum.
MUSEUM cont’d to page 10
Facing page: Veterans Memorial Park commissioners (from left) Roger Willey, Keane Hudson, Mike Mills and Al Wikoff are working to bring a military museum to Dixon, but they can’t do it alone. The planned Veterans Memorial Park Museum needs some financial firepower for building upgrades and upkeep, artifact storage and other needs before it can open its doors. If you want to find out how to help, turn to page 13 for more information.
CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@ SHAWMEDIA.COM
The Veterans Memorial Park's visitor center (top), dubbed the “Headquarters and Headquarters Co.”, currently houses some military artifacts that the commission has acquired, but plans call to convert the former Ron’s Automotive building (bottom) next door to a military museum.
The museum itself is a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization, and donations to it are tax-deductible. Donations of artifacts keep coming in, but for now they are kept in storage, many of them in boxes, waiting for the day when the museum becomes a reality. Only then will uniforms and coats come out of protective wrappings, military gear get unpacked, and photos see the light out of day.
In the meantime, though, volunteers are putting together their plans, never losing sight of their objective.
“We’ve got a lot of learning to do,” park commissioner Al Wikoff said. “We’re starting out small, but I can see it getting bigger. We got to have some things in place. Even if you’re starting out small, you got to have heat, the right humidity, and all kinds of stuff to wrap it all in. We’re making it compatible so that when stuff comes in, it doesn’t get boxed up anymore.”
MUSEUM cont’d from page 10
A few years ago, Wikoff, Dick Herbon and Tom Whelan wrapped up a day’s work at the visitor center and looked out toward the park and its largest artifacts. It reminded them of the many more smaller ones that were piling up inside, and Herbon had a thought, Wikoff recalled.
“Dick Herbon came up with the idea that we needed a museum,” Wikoff said. “Stuff started coming into the little visitor center, and then we outgrew that. We were talking one day and said we needed to go bigger. We had to do something different. They came up with the idea and looked into building buildings, and then Ron Dewey decided to sell [his building] and we bought this.”
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Regardless of when the museum opens, there’ll be no shortage of items to put on display. The commission has already acquired myriad military’s, including uniforms, ammo crates, photos, military honors and more. At left, Al Wikoff, one of the commissioners of the Veterans Memorial Park and Museum, goes through some of the boxes of items that have already been donated to the museum.
While the short-term goals are in place for the museum, long-term goals are on the board too: the park commission also owns two parcels of property on Lincoln Avenue north of its current building that it hopes to use to add on to the building. One of the parcels has a vacant house on it that’s slated for demolition in the near future.
Plans for the museum call for displays with accompanying placards that feature information about the pieces as well as a scan codes for smartphone users who want to learn more. The codes not only help point people to more information, they appeal to younger visitors, too.
“What we envision is a scan code where you can scan it with your phone and it can give you all of the information for each display,” park commissioner Mike Mills said. “That’s what we’ve seen in other museums, so we’re learning from these places.”
Willey also hopes the scan codes will get people to go learn more about the military.
“We have catalogs of information with whatever people donate,” Willey said. “One of our projects is to get it all digitized and put on a website, where people who scan something can go see all of the relevant information about it.”
One challenge to opening a veterans museum in the 2020s is the dwindling number of World War II survivors who can
tell their stories in person. Museums that opened as recently as 20 years ago were able to collect stories and artifacts while there were more WWII veterans around. According the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, only about 167,00 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II were alive in 2022, a number that will only grow smaller. More often than not, donations of material and the stories that come with them are done by the veterans’ family.
“[Other museums] had people who could talk to you and tell you about the artifacts and stuff like that,” Wikoff said. “We won’t be able to do that because those World War II guys aren’t here anymore.”
Even for those veterans who are still living, getting them to share their stories can sometimes be difficult. Some, especially those who saw action, prefer not to talk about their time in the service. For those who do though, the museum offers them a place to do it. Sometimes family members never get to know about their relatives’ service memories, and wind up donating artifacts without knowing the stories behind them.
The museum’s volunteers can help bring at least some important information out of what’s been donated, such as what certain items were used for, what markings may mean, and how something wound up in a soldier’s possession.
MUSEUM cont’d to page 13
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“A lot of stuff we get is from someone whose fathers have passed,” park commissioner Keane Hudson said. “A lot of vets didn’t talk about it. If they have pictures, we’ll take pictures and some literature information, but with a lot of them, you won’t get it. Hopefully, with what all we’ll have, maybe people will realize that we are interested in all that kind of stuff, not just the artifact itself, but where did it come from. If their Dad was in the Battle of the Bulge, that’s important.”
While there’s no shortage of ambition and ideas for the museum, it’s going to take money to ensure a victory.
As the park was being created in 2001, the local veterans involved in it put out a call to arms to their fellow veterans in the area to help make the park a reality, and they did. Wikoff saw it all unfold then, and he said the same thing could happen with the museum now.
“The Sauk Valley has veterans all over the place,” Wikoff said. “When we were building the Veterans Memorial Park, we called upon veterans to come and help us. It didn’t make any difference what you needed, there was a veteran who did it.” n
Donations for the The Dixon Veterans Memorial Park Museum, 1217 Palmyra St., can be mailed to Veterans Memorial Park Museum, P.O. Box 591, Dixon, IL, 61021, with checks made out to “Veterans Memorial Park Museum.” Donations also can be dropped off at the park’s visitor center, open from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through September. MORE INFO: Go to dixonveteranspark.org, email thunderchief105d@hotmail.com or call 815-288-1911 for more information on the museum and its fundraising goals, to arrange a donation or to assist with the development of the museum.
They’ve had a lot going on in the three years they’ve been together, building a life and getting businesses off the ground and on the road, but they’ve enjoyed the support of the Dixon community along the way, both personally and for their businesses. Coley, a native of North Pole, Alaska, has been in the area since 1998. Dabney, from the small town of Minier, about 15 miles west of Bloomington, made Dixon his home when he got together with Coley. While the trucking business still has an office in Minier, he’s set up shop in Dixon, too, which has increased his customer base,
“There are a lot more opportunities here than what I’ve been accustomed to in Minier, a town of 1,500 people,” Dabney said. “The area’s been really good to us on trucking side. We’ve got a lot of work here in northern Illinois and the surrounding counties, and we seem to be growing every day, every month and every season when we do a lot of ag-related stuff, with this area being an ag community.”
BUSINESSES cont’d to page 17
The Stables, with its signature turret overlooking South Galena Avenue, has been part of the downtown landscape since 1939. The trucking and tow businesses are the newer kids on the block: Dabney Services is housed in the former Hardin’s Auto Repair building on Willett Avenue on the northwest side of town, and Dabney Trucking is on property once owned by the St. Mary Cement plant northeast of town.
Dabney and Coley bought The Stables from Ryan Marshall in March 2022. After a short delay in opening — a vehicle crashed into a support beam under the turret in November — the bar welcomed customers back on Dec. 9, for the first time in about a year and a half.
While the transition was mostly turnkey, Coley said, with few changes to the bar’s overall look, the couple did put their own stamp on The Stables.
One change was adding more domestic beers to its lineup, but there are still IPAs in stock and on tap. One of the beers added to the tap selection was special to Coley — Alaskan Amber, which “is my own little piece of home,” she said. It’s an old-style amber ale, not sweet, not sour.
“It’s been pretty popular,” she said. “I’ve been surprised.”
Fittingly enough, the couple’s journey to becoming partners had its start behind the wheel. The two met when Dabney made a haul to a co-op Coley worked at. As they spent more time together, they knew they were in it for the long haul — and they also found out they shared something else in common. Coley had worked as a bartender off and on since coming to the area, and Dabney had wanted to own a bar one day.
“I always thought it would be fun to own a bar,” Dabney said. “I came in here a couple of times when the Marshalls had it, and I really liked the decor, the layout of the bar and the look of the bar. It’s a really nice, clean, small bar. Then it came for sale. The building and the location were just perfect, and we wanted to give it a shot.” The Stables building, built in 1896, has two upper floors, which were formerly used for apartment space. The couple is using the second floor as an office for their businesses. As the couple settled into their role as bar owners, they found that sometimes business would practically come knocking at their door.
The Stables has been part of the downtown Dixon tavern scene since 1939, and it still retaints its vintage vibe, including one of the downtown’s most distinctive architectural details: the building’s corner turret. The cornerpiece of the bar’s signature look underwent some work last fall after it was damaged in an vehicle accident.
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One day in early March, a semi carrying an oversized load broke down near the front of the bar on its way up the hill on Galena Avenue. When customers noticed the stalled rig, they didn’t have to look too far to know who to call. Sure enough, a Kenworth T880 tow truck with the Dabney name on it hooked it up and maneuvered it up the hill and through the turn onto East Second Street. While there was a time when a job like that would’ve taken a call to a tow service miles away, Dabney had the right equipment in town to get the job done quickly and cleared the busy street.
“There’s not anything that we can’t tow,” Dabney said. “We’ve got light duty towing up to heavy-duty recovery. There’s not a lot of options for it this way. If you want to go to Rockford or La Salle-Peru, or the Quad Cities, you’d be waiting a couple of hours. There’s a need for it in this area.”
BUSINESSES cont’d to page 20
"I think the reason why we can be successful is that, if we didn't have the people that we have working with us — family and employees — it wouldn't work," Dixon businesswoman Jen Coley said of teams they have working at The Stables, Dabney Services and Dabney Trucking. The couple (at right) are pictured at The Stables with bar manager Bob Lauritzen and bartender Brianna Grobe.
The Stables 87 S, Galena Ave., is open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday. Find it on Facebook, email stablesbar2022@gmail. com or call 815-288-9329 for more information.
Dabney Services, 607 Willett Ave., is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Find it on Facebook, email dabneyservicesllc@ gmail.com or call 815-284-4435 for more information.
Dabney Trucking is at 908 E. state Route 2. Find it on Facebook, email dabneytrucking@ yahoo.com, or call 309-840-2287 for more information.
Dabney and Coley purchased Hardin’s in August 2022 and specialize in diesel heavy truck repair. They started out with two heavy towers and now have five, and also are on-call duty for District 1 of the Illinois State Police, based in Sterling, for large vehicle assistance and crash recovery.
Dabney’s fleet in the trucking business consists of more than 30 rigs, which haul LP gas, anhydrous ammonia and dry and liquid fertilizer, as well as seed and farm equipment. The company also began hauling gasoline tanks this year. Having a truck repair business comes in handy — if any of those trucks breaks down, they come right back to Dixon and are worked on in-house.
“Being here for a couple of years, I knew there was a need for a good diesel repair shop for heavy equipment, and also for a towing business,” Dabney said. “We’ve had that since August of ’22, and the community has really been good to us since we opened our doors and started going.”
Dabney — who started Dabney Trucking in 2006, not long after graduating from college — is a second-generation trucker; his father, Jerry, owned Walters Trucking in Minier until Brian bought him out in 2018. In addition to agriculture transport, the company also is an in-house carrier for Brandt Industries, a Canada-based manufacturer of grain cart wagons in Hudson, a small community north of Normal; and it also has an account with Blue Rhino propane tanks.
Having moved to Dixon to be close to his soon-to-be wife, Dabney keeps busy with the businesses. While he and Coley plan to get married, finding a date to make it happen while juggling three businesses has been a challenge, but one they gladly accept. The couple wants to make sure their businesses are going strong and their employees are taken care of.
“It comes with a lot of reward,” Coley said. “There’s a lot of personal satisfaction and success, but there’s a heavy commitment. I think the reason we can be successful is that, if we didn’t have the people that we have working with us — family and employees — it wouldn’t work. We have been very blessed.”
“You never know what the next day is going to throw at you,” Dabney added. “You have to have good people, from truck drivers to mechanics to bartenders.”
The couple not only has loyal workers in their businesses, but loyal customers, too. Longtime patrons of The Stables are glad to see the bar open again, and anyone who needs trucking and towing can find it close to home. The couple is finding out first hand that when they take care of the community, the community will take care of them.
“The history of the town and the interesting places have always been fascinating, and I love hearing people tell their stories about the different things that they’ve experienced,” Coley said. “The different local events that they hold all of the time I think is great. It’s a very supportive community within each other, and at the same time, you’re not in a big city but you have access to big city things.
“I think current businesses would agree, as well as anyone going into business, if you have the commitment and the chance to go into business, this community will support you. We’ve found that out.” n
other golf courses heard about the who’s who that’s walked the links at Timber Creek Golf Course during its 108-year history, they’d probably be greens with envy.
Ronald Reagan, at just 12 years old, once hauled golf clubs around its greens during the first Women’s Lincoln Highway Tournament in 1923.
Jack Nicklaus, building his legacy as one of professional golf’s all-time greats, shot a round of 32 in a 9-hole exhibition on the same rolling greens in 1965.
Charles Walgreen, the founder of the national drug store chain that bears his name, was one of the first golfers to swing a club at the course.
While there’s a lot to celebrate in the course’s past, it’s Timber Creek’s future that a group of local golfers are focusing on now.
Just a few weeks before the golf season teed off, the fivesome of Rich Boysen, Ryan Harrison, Steve Kitzman, Tom Rich and Doug Schuler partnered up to sign a 3-year lease option to keep the course going this year.
The five formed a limited liability partnership in early March and are leasing the course from its owners, Ron and Brett Keith. The course layout will continue to look the same, improvements will be made, and the bar will continue to serve beverages and light snacks. Everything else on Timber Creek’s grounds, however — the restaurant, banquet hall, swimming pool and tennis courts — continue to face an uncertain future.
For now, the group just wants to focus on getting golfers to the course and keep them coming back.
“It’s necessary for the community to have it be a draw,” said Schuler, retired owner of Dixon Auto Body. “We’ve got some parks for the youth, but [golfers] would have to go out of town and play. I would think businesses coming into town would look at a place like this for something for their people to do.”
The Keiths purchased the course in 2007 and changed its name from Dixon Country Club to Timber Creek Golf Course and opened it to the public. The operation of golf courses nationwide has been on a decline in recent decades, and after losses in revenue, the Keiths leased it for 3 years to local agriculture business owners Rick and Brenda Humphrey in 2019. When the lease expired, a potential sale to Kreider Services fell through, and the course faced likely closure — until the current group came together and came forward.
Boysen, retired general manager of Dixon Direct and member of the KSB Hospital Board of Directors, knows firsthand the importance of having a course like Timber Creek in the community. He said having a quality course can factor into whether or not a potential hospital physician or employee wants to relocate. The same goes for other local businesses, he said.
“The likelihood of the course staying open was not very good,” Boysen said. “We were all in support of having Kreider, but we as a group — we never dreamed we were going to be in the golf course business — but then we decided to form an LLC and operate the club.”
The course opened in early April with only three months of preparation, unlike most courses, which would be preparing for the following year midway through the previous one. Membership rates were posted to the group’s Facebook page (“Timber Creek Golf – Dixon”) shortly after the lease was signed.
“I think if we didn’t at least try to step in and do something with it, it was never going to come back,” Schuler added.
Rich, like a young Reagan, caddied at the course as a kid in the 1950s and ’60s, and didn’t want to see a piece of local history, and a piece of his childhood memories, disappear.
“I came out here as a kid and caddied and played out here,” said Rich, a retired engineer at Borg Warner. “As long as I’ve lived here, I’ve been a member. A real loss would have been the history of the course. It’s over 100 years old, Charles Walgreen dedicated the property, Ronald Reagan caddied here and brought his friends from Hollywood out here, Jack Nicklaus played here. There’s just so much history for a small club. How many small golf courses around here can arguably say that they had the best golfer of all time play it? It’s an amazing thing.”
The group doesn’t plan to make any money personally in the endeavor; instead, they plan to reinvest all profits into facility improvements. The fixes include aeration, fertilization, and overseeding of the greens; upgrades to the existing sprinkler system; clearing and removing dead and unnecessary trees and foliage; and improving the quality of certain sand traps and converting others to grass bunkers. In addition, the practice putting green will undergo a renovation; course accessories such as flags, tee markers, ball cleaners and benches will be updated; and if demand warrants it the restaurant could reopen.
TIMBER
“Ultimately, we would like to open up the restaurant at some point in the future, but at this point we’re not ready to do that,” Boysen said. “It’s going to take some time to get all of that squared away. It was successful when the Humphreys had it. It can earn some money and then that money can go back to the golf course. It all fits together real well. Certainly the town could use another restaurant, with it being a nice place to sit outside.”
Other goals down the road include making the course a venue for golf outings and special occasions, and offering instruction and golf camps to younger golfers. The group is taking their goals day-by-day, wanting to get a feel of how each week or month goes in order to not bite off more than they can chew.
TIMBER CREEK cont’d to page 27
The course also hosts the boys and girls golf programs at Dixon High School, and is a charter member of the century-long Lincoln Highway amateur tournament. Timber Creek was originally scheduled to host the 2022 men’s tournament, but it was moved to PrairieView Golf Club in Byron due to unfavorable course conditions.
“It’s part of the community,” said Kitzman, owner of Kitzman’s Lumber. “The history. The community. It’s a great sport. We’re keeping it local, we’re supporting Dixon High School and keeping the golf team out here.”
The lease option runs until 2026, at which time the group could purchase the course. They’re hoping for success in the first year, but only time will tell what the future holds.
“Timber Creek is a true asset of the Sauk Valley community, and we plan to position this facility for success in the future,” Boysen said. n
Timber Creek Golf Course is at 729 Timber Creek Road, north of Dixon. Find “Timber Creek Golf — Dixon” on Facebook, or call 815-378-8256 to schedule a tee time, for membership rates, or for more information.
you’re looking for a way to bring mind and muscle into harmony, one way to do it is to understand that your body is like an instrument. It needs to be fine tuned. That’s where Huma Pekcan can help. She’s the instructor and owner of Huma Pilates, Dixon’s first Pilates-only studio. It’s there where she brings clients — and the body and mind — together to practice Pilates, an approach to health and wellness that’s been around for nearly 100 years and continues to gain followers today, about 12 million worldwide and counting, according the Pilates Foundation.
Some of those followers can be found at Pekcan’s studio, where the Istanbul, Turkey, native and Los Angeles transplant helps people strengthen their mind and body.
She’s been a certified Pilates instructor for 11 years and welcomed her first clients to her studio in mid-February for classes and private and semi-private sessions, bringing her lifelong passion for health and wellness to the community. She also works with athletes, pregnant women and post-partum clients. Whatever their needs, Pekcan’s focus is on finding a routine that works for them and providing a supportive and encouraging environment in which to do it.
Huma Pekcan, owner/instructor of Huma Pilates in Dixon, said that when she opened her studio, she “wanted to create a space where individuals can connect with each other, share the art of movement, and experience wellness through mindful movement and connection with other community members.”
“Pilates is a powerful form of exercise that can benefit everyone, regardless of their age, fitness level, or health status,” she said. “Pilates is not just an exercise routine, but a way of life that can bring about significant positive change.”
Pilates is a low-impact, full-body workout designed to target the body’s core muscles — abdominals, lower back, and hips — employing more fluid and precise movements than other types of workouts, and emphasizing controlled breathing. The overall effect is more about toning muscles than building them.
Basic exercises that involve laying flat on the back include “the hundred,” where legs and shoulders are lifted with five seconds intervals of breathing in and five seconds of breathing out for a total of 100 seconds; the roll-up into a seated position; and single leg circles where one leg is moved in a circular motion. Other common exercises are the plank, which involves holding a push-up position with arms straight; and the leg pull, which involves the moving the legs in a scissoring motion from a plank position.
HUMA cont’d to page 30
HUMA cont’d from page 29
While building core strength is a key part of the Pilates approach, secondary muscles benefit, too. If there are certain areas of the body that need more help than others, additional exercises can be drawn up to help in those areas.
“Each exercise is performed mindfully, with a focus on engaging the core and using controlled breathing,” Pekcan said. “This emphasis on mindful movement, and breath work is what sets Pilates apart from other forms of exercise and helps to create a strong mind-body connection. In fact, many Pilates practitioners find that the principles they learn in class carry over into their daily lives, such as being more mindful of their posture and movement patterns throughout the day.”
When Pekcan was looking for a place to hold
Pilates classes, she didn’t want to bring a flashy, flavor-ofthe-day kind of studio to Dixon. She wanted someplace that would reflect the tenets of the Pilates philosophy, someplace where her clients could feel at home — and that’s just she found on North Galena Avenue, where she bought a house and turned it into her studio. The former home provides a warm and inviting atmosphere for Pekcan and her clients. Open spaces are painted in light colors and bathed in natural light, creating a serene and calming atmosphere.
“I wanted to create a space where individuals remove their limitations in thinking and movement and experience highness in mind and body,” Pekcan said. “I believe that the mind, body, and soul are all connected, and I wanted to create a space where individuals can connect with each other, share the art of movement, and experience wellness through mindful movement and connection with other community members. Our studio is a place where clients can let go of their stresses and connect with themselves and others.”
As for her equipment, she utilizes the Balanced Body line of products, which are popular throughout the world.
Huma is named after the mythical Hüma bird known throughout European and Asian cultures. According to Turkic mythology, she said, whoever catches a glimpse of the Hüma bird will be blessed with good fortune and happiness. While growing up her in native Istanbul, she enjoyed classical ballet and studied at the Istanbul Conservatory.
HUMA cont’d to pages 31 & 32
307 First Ave., Sterling Monday-Sunday 10am-4pm
Pekcan said that when she was looking for a place to hold Pilates classes, she wanted somewhere that would provide an inviting environment for her clients that would allow her to “create a space where individuals remove their limitations in thinking and movement and experience highness in mind and body.” She found it in a house on North Galena Avenue in Dixon.
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She first learned about Pilates after coming to America — in Los Angeles — to study psychotherapy. The exercise was a natural fit with her experience in ballet, and the more time she spent doing it, she came to find that it helped her maintain not only her flexibility, but peace of mind.
“I was amazed at how I felt after each session and was drawn to the mindful movement of Pilates, which connected me to my ballet background and provided me with a sense of peace and well-being,” Pekcan said. “Through this experience, I came to realize the profound connection between the mind and body in the healing process and made Pilates a regular practice in my life.
After years
of studying and teaching Pilates, I have come to appreciate its ability to foster not only physical strength and flexibility but also mental clarity and balance.”
Pilates is suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels, and its exercises can be customized to suit individual needs and goals, making it an excellent form of exercise for athletes and people recovering from injuries.
“Pilates offers numerous health benefits, both physical and mental,” Pekcan said. “Physically, Pilates can improve core strength, flexibility, posture, and balance. It can also help alleviate pain and tension in the body, particularly in the neck, back, and hips. Pilates is an excellent form of exercise for people with injuries or chronic pain because it is low-impact and can be modified to fit individual needs.”
Pilates is named after Joseph Pilates of Germany, whose childhood illnesses influenced him as he sought a way to live a healthier life. He moved to England in the early 1900s and spread his system of exercises to fellow prisoners while interned in a prisoner of war camp during World War I. Pilates later moved to America and continued to improve upon what he developed, and by the mid 20th century, Pilates had entered mainstream exercise routines. Pekcan trained for many years with one of Pilates’ protégés, Risa Sheppard.
HUMA cont’d to pages 33 & 34
Pekcan’s studio is equipped with several reformers, a piece of exercise equipment invented by Pilates founder Joseph Pilates. The reformer is a bed-like frame with a carriage on it that rolls back and forth. The carriage is attached at one end by springs that provide differing levels of resistance as the carriage is pulled or pushed along the frame. Straps attached at one end can be pulled with the arms or legs. The versatile machine allows users to exercise sitting standing or lying down.
Pilates instruction is a secondary career for Pekcan, who is a licensed psychotherapist with a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and is pursuing a doctorate in the same study through Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California (learn more about Pekcan’s practice and what she offers through this work at humapekcan.com). While living most of the year in Dixon with her two young sons, she continues to split her time between the City of Petunias and the City of Angels where she has her
psychotherapy practice.
“Through my travels, I am able to gain exposure to different perspectives and approaches to psychology and Pilates practice, which enhances the quality of care that I provide to my clients and patients,” Pekcan said. “Overall, I feel that I am able to get the best of both worlds by splitting my time between California and Illinois.”
Pekcan came to Dixon to be closer to the family of her partner, who hails from Sterling. Through the people she’s met in her short time, she’s already developed close relationships to people in a town that “truly feels like home,” she said. Her children love it, too, taking in a thriving culture of outdoor activities and the arts that — like Pilates — help create healthy minds and bodies.
Huma Pilates classes are from 8 to 9:15 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, at 606 N. Galena Ave. Go to humapilates.com, email hello@humapilates.com or call 310-954-7940 to register for a session or for more information.
“Dixon has captured my heart with its picturesque charm and inviting community,” Pekcan said. “As a mother, I am constantly seeking a nurturing environment that will allow my two young boys to flourish. Dixon offers just that: an idyllic small town that is perfect for raising well-rounded children. There’s always something creative and fun going on that my family and I can participate in together. It’s a great way for us to bond and connect with the community.” n
