Let the good times roll, at area skating rinks and bowling alleys
Restaurant spices things up with Caribbean cuisine
JANUARY 2025
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JANUARY 2024
hen the Eastland High School Cougars are giving their best on the basketball court, and the Eastland/Pearl City co-op football Wildcatz are giving their all on the gridiron, another group of highschoolers are standing beside them all way — but they’re not standing still.
They’re on their feet clapping their hands, and off their feet jumping for joy. They’re the cheerleaders who get the crowd whipped up and the teams charged up. They’ve got team spirit, yes they do; they’ve got team spirit through and through, and Lake Carroll’s Sydney Gassman is part of that team effort. Sydney, a sophomore at EHS, has been on both the football and basketball cheerleading squad for both of her years in high school. This winter, she’s leading the cheers for the Cougars’ varsity boys basketball team — and it should be an exciting year for them, as they look to improve on a 26-10 campaign from a year ago with several returning players; they enjoyed a
early season Top 5 Associated Press state ranking in Class 1A.
During basketball home games, Sydney and her fellow cheerleaders line up along the baselines next to the student section, waiting for the right moments to lift their team’s spirits through choreographed moves and cheers of encouragement as the hoopsters throw a shot or make a defensive stop. It’s during timeouts and quarter breaks, however, when Gassman and her squad come off the sidelines to take center stage on the court, performing their best cheer routines and acrobatic stunts.
Keeping Sydney and the rest of the cheerleaders in sync during the game takes a skilled coach, and for Sydney and the rest of the Eastland squad, it’s fellow Lake Carroll resident Karin Myre.
While cheerleading takes up Sydney’s time on the sports scene during the fall and winter, her competitive mindset thrives in the spring, too, when she’s running short sprints and long jumping for the Milledgeville-Eastland track and field team. When she’s not engaging in school activities, Sydney creates and sells bracelets, jewelry, knitted hats, decorative lanyards and hair scrunchies at the Lake Carroll Farmers Market during the summer with her business, Sydney Elizabeth Designs. She plans to add some new products in time for this summer’s markets, she said.
Sydney is the daughter of Mark and Jennifer Gassman. The Gassmans have lived in Lake Carroll since 2018. Lake Lifestyle recently caught up with Sydney to talk to her about her time out on the basketball court
SUBMITTED PHOTOS
If you wanted to encourage someone to join the cheerleading squad, what would you tell them?
You’re always with your friends, and you’re getting to know each sport that you cheer for a little better. You get to go to every single game and you’re also supporting your friends. When they talk about the game the next day, you can be a part of that conversation.
Here’s a chance to settle a debate: Is cheerleading a sport?
Cheerleading is a sport. We’re still putting in as much time as the other sports are. We’re still putting in as much dedication as other sports are. We have teamwork. We have trust. As a flier, or even as a base, people could fall on you. As a stunt group, you are depending on every single person to do their job correctly,
and if one person does it wrong, the whole entire thing is going to fail. We’re putting in as much work as everyone else is, just in a different way.
Is this something you plan to do all four years of school? Yes, it’s super fun.
What have you come to like and enjoy about Lake Carroll?
I love using the lake. We have a boat, and I learned to ski a couple of years ago and that was a lot of fun. I think it’s cool being at the farmer’s markets and getting to know lots of people, or when we have the Lake Carroll bonfire or other gettogethers like the New Year’s Eve party, it’s cool to know people.
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
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When the owners of a Polo business looked at an empty storefront, they saw a space that was full of potential; now they’re welcoming people to stop by to rekindle the past and get a spark in their eye at their antique shop — and even learn a little about Kim while they’re there
he things passed down to Jodi Horner through the years have been more than just mementoes and collectibles; they’ve been a gateway to a way of life and a livelihood.
Horner is the gatekeeper at Kim’s Gateway Antiques in Polo, where her passion for collecting has filled the store with more than just merchandise from days gone by, it’s filled it with precious memories too.
Memories of auctions and antiques. Memories of bric-a-brac and what-nots. Memories of family and friends — some who are gone, but far from forgotten, like the friend who is still with Horner every day she opens the doors of the shop she started a few years ago.
The Kim in the store’s name is Horner’s way of honoring a relationship that was born in a Barn and grew quickly into a cherished — but sadly, brief — friendship.
About 10 years ago, Horner was bidding on a vintage porch gable piece at the Chana Sale Barn. So was Kim Meyer — and though Meyer ended up winning, there were no hard feelings, just an easy friendship.
“We bid on a piece against each other that she won, and then she asked if we can go to lunch,” Horner said. “We became instant friends. We were friends for not even two years before she passed.”
Meyer, of Huntley, died of leukemia July 21, 2015. Horner grieved but pressed on with her love of antiquing, as a way to remember and honor her bidding buddy and cohort in collecting.
Shannan Haenitsch and Jodi Horner of Kim’s Gateway Antiques in Polo enjoy peddling the past from their downtown store. One of the highlights for Horner is restocking it: “There’s a thrill of finding something when you’re out there picking to find something for the store ... ” A point of pride for Haenitsch: Bringing business back to formerly empty storefronts in his hometown:
“My entire drive has been to put something back into town,” he said.
“We had a great friendship of collecting,” Horner said. “Even though she passed, I would still go to garage sales and go thrifting and go, ‘Wow, that’s old and worth some money!’ Or, ‘I could sell that.’ This is in memory of her. She would have told me to quit pouting and get back on my feet and keep doing what her and I did together.”
What Horner, of German Valley, did was turn that eye for a deal and passion for picking into a way to make money with her business partner, Shannan Haenitsch of Polo, who owns the downtown shop with her.
While Horner gets her share of customers who think
she’s the Kim in Kim’s Gateway Antiques, she said it doesn’t bother her; it just brings back happy memories, much like an antique does, reminding her of their friendship.
Even today, when she’s out on a picking adventure, she’ll dust off her memories of Meyer.
When Horner finds an old dustpan, she immediately thinks of her friend. There are some hanging on the walls at her store, with both long and short handles — as Horner and Meyer each had their preferences. They’re not there to make money, though, but rather to make Horner smile.
“I collected the short-handled ones, and she collected the long-handled ones. We kind of chuckled when we first met because she told me, ‘I collect dust pans,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, so do I.’ She’s like, ‘I collect the long-handled ones,’ and I go, ‘I collect the shorts.’ Now that she’s gone, when I find one I get even more excited because it adds to the collection.”
Like other everyday items, especially kitchen goods, dustpans were once used to advertise businesses, and when customers run across those old promotional items, it rekindles a long-forgotten memory.
That’s what Horner and Haenitsch like to see when people shop at their store.
“My whole family was always around antiques,” Horner said. “I remember as a little girl going to auctions with my grandparents and parents, and always grew up around antiques. I had a love for them, and it’s just always been there. I can get sentimental with having a piece that belonged to this grandma, and another that belonged to that grandma.”
Though Jodi Horner’s late friend, Kim Meyer (right), is gone, she’s never far away. She’s in the sign in the store’s window and in the memories hanging on the wall at Kim’s Gateway Antiques — like these vintage dustpans, a favorite collectible the two shared, and the porch gable piece that came from an auction about 10 years ago. Jodi and Kim were bidding against each other for it (Kim won), and that led to a friendship between the two before Meyer died of leukemia in 2015.
Horner and Haenitsch have known each other for almost 10 years, and when they had an opportunity to buy a trio of downtown storefronts for a nice price three years ago, her desire to open an antique store came into play. The buildings had only been used sparingly since the mid-1990s, and the pair rolled up their sleeves to fix them up, preserving what wood flooring was left and uncovering the tin ceilings.
The antique shop takes up a room and a half of the space, with the remainder used as a resale shop, Gateway Big Box Resale, which carries newer items, many of which are overstock from big box retail stores.
The Gateway part of the name was Haenitsch’s contribution; Polo calls itself “Gateway to the Pines,” and the longtime resident came to enjoy his time there as a high-schooler after his family moved there.
Working with Horner has helped him learn more about and appreci ate the “Antique” part of the store’s name. He enjoys chatting with customers about them, and said he’s proud of being able to help breathe new life into the downtown store fronts and helping them find a purpose again.
“I enjoy the sociableness,” Haenitsch said. “I enjoy putting back into the town. My entire drive has been to put something back into town. I moved here in eighth grade and had been in nine schools by then, and I finally decided that this is where I wanted to settle. Polo was where I wanted to be, and I enjoyed
being somewhere for the first time in my life. When I was in high school, downtown was full and every building had a purpose.”
The inventory of antiques comes from Horner’s own finds, as well as those from a handful of vendors who sell their own items. Unlike stores where vendors are arranged by booths, merchandise is grouped together by kinds throughout the stores, with vendors’ number on the price tags.
It’s an arrangement that’s worked well for both vendors and customers, Haenitsch said.
“I like this a lot better,” he said. “The salt and pepper stuff is here, the bedding stuff is there, and everything is in categories. I was leaning toward having her do booths at one point because that’s all I had ever seen, but after being in one, after being through a third or fourth one I’m tired of looking.”
Horner likes to keep the inventory fresh so that there’s always something new — and old — to see. Stuff is marked to move, so if someone sees something they like, they shouldn’t wait to buy. And if they don’t see something they like, stop back again; there’s a good chance it’ll be there, with new items coming and going all the time. Customers can also fill out a “wish list” so that Horner can keep an eye out for things when she’s out picking. If it’s Phillips 66 memorabilia someone’s looking for, however, they may have to take a number behind Horner. Those pieces of petroliana are personal to Horner, having grown up around the gas station in Mount Morris that her grandparents Vernon and Minnie Burke owned for many years.
Like other antique-lovers, Horner loves the hunt for history. “There's a thrill of finding something when
there picking to find something for the store, or find something for your
collection,” she said.
Kim’s Gateway Antiques, 108 W. Mason St. in downtown Polo is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Find it on Facebook, email kimsgateway-antiques@ gmail.com or call 815-4412886 for more information.
A passion for the past, an appreciation for antiques and an understanding of the emotional connection people make with them helps guide Horner on her hunts — and of course, there’s still the thrill of finding that certain something a customer’s been looking for, or tracking down a treasured memory of her own.
“One of my vendors once opened up a corn crib, and I went through that and didn’t want to leave,” Horner said. “There’s a thrill of finding something when you’re out there picking to find something for the store, or find something for your own collection.” n
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
CODYCUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM
With all that taste-testing and family history under her belt, Pieper knows her cheeses, especially the 50 or so varieties she sells at her shop, Megz Country Cheese in Davis, about 45 minutes northeast of Lake Carroll. She’s well versed in the tastes and textures of the dairy delight, and she’s more than happy to share her expertise with customers. Looking for the right cheese to pair with wine? Looking for a cheese with flavor notes that’ll make your dish sing? Meg can help.
The shop sells cheeses — sliced, trays, bricks — all of which come from area cheesemakers such as Decatur Dairy in Brodhead, Wisconsin, and Maple Leaf Cheese in Juda, Wisconsin, both located within 10 miles from Megz — and, of course, her family’s factory in town, Wenger’s Springbrook Cheese.
You’d be forgiven if you pulled up to Megz and asked for a fill-up. That’s because the cheese shop is housed in a former gas station. Pieper even had one of its original pumps restored and put back where it used to be.
Cheese fans will find a lot to cheer about at Megz. Though the store specializes in the standard staples — such as cheddar, Swiss, Muenster, brick, and colby jack — Pieper also carries other varieties and special blends, such as blueberry and raspberry white cheddars.
“We try to keep it simple and not go too wild with things,” Pieper said. “Most people just want something simple and not too exotic. Cheddar, Swiss, Muenster, Cojack, brick, they’re just looking for the basics for sandwiches or cheese trays for the parties. In my opinion, less is more, because if you have too much variety, you’re going to sit on it for a long time.”
You don’t have to be a cheese-loving turophile to enjoy all the varieties Megz offers. Even if your knowledge of cheese doesn’t go much beyond Kraft and Velveeta, Pieper is happy to help — she’s like the Pied Pieper of Cheeses, leading customers on a journey through the world of cheese.
Never heard of butterkase or gruyere? Pieper can tell you about them. Gruyere, for example, is a nutty-like cheese similar to Swiss; its taste doesn’t have as much of a bite, but it’s hard like a Swiss, and it’s a good choice for shredding, to use on a casserole or macaroni and cheese, Pieper said.
PHOTOS: CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM
“Meeting new people and our returning customers, visiting with them, is really what makes coming to work easy,” Pieper said.
“More than half of my job is having conversations with people, making them feel seen and welcomed and appreciated. I’m a talker, and that’s easy for me. The people in the area are really great supporters, and I wouldn’t be here this long if people didn’t continue to return.”
The building itself is a conversation piece, too: It originally was a Great Depression-era Conoco gas station, and Pieper recently had one of its original pumps restored and put back where it used to be.
A slab, a slice, a chunk, you can get your cheese just about anyway you like it at Megz — just not shredded. Pieper says customers are better off doing that at home: “It’s going to melt better, it’s going to taste better.”
PHOTOS: CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM
Megz has more than just cheese. You can also grab a sandwich, made with deli meat sold at the shop, a bowl of soup or chili, salad, and top it all off with ice cream.
Pieper opened the shop in November 2013 and has kept an eye on what cheeses are popular with customers and those that don’t move. She started to carry the Colby Swiss blend — a cross between lace Swiss and Colby longhorn — and it has become a popular seller.
“It looks like Cojack because of the marble color, but has a lace to it,” Pieper said. “We started selling it five years ago, and people like it because it’s not super strong, like Swiss, because it has that Colby in it that offsets the bitey-ness of Swiss. It’s good for grilled cheese.” Another variety good for the grill is the family’s Springbrook’s Grilling Cheese: “It’s a high-temp, high-moisture cheese,” Pieper said. “You can put it on the grill or put it in a pan and sear it so that it can be crusted on both sides, then you can cut it up and eat it as an appetizer or as cheese curds. The high moisture prevents the cheese from oozing out all over the place, so it holds a shape.”
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If you prefer shredded cheese, you’ll have to get your own grater. Megz doesn’t sell it; Pieper encourages customers to shred blocks instead.
“One thing I always try to tell people that it’s better to shred it yourself,” Pieper said. “It’s going to melt better, it’s going to taste better, and it’s not hard. It doesn’t take much time to do; you can do it when your meat is cooking or while something else in your kitchen is going. I have people who come and buy two or three pounds at a time, and go shred it and freeze it so that it’s already ready.”
Cheese isn’t all Pieper sells: Customers can also pick from a variety of deli meats — turkey, ham, roast beef, dried beef, pastrami, and hard salami — and they can get deli sandwiches, too, on a variety of breads: white, wheat, oatmeal, marble rye, croissant or hoagie.
Cheese and meat trays are another popular seller, and Pieper and her staff put a lot of them together during the holidays (144 were done for Christmas in 2023 alone). The shop also sells potato salad, soups and chili. Customers can order takeout, or dine in.
Ice cream is also available, with 12 rotating flavors from Cedar Crest Ice Cream of Cedarburg, Wisconsin (north of Milwaukee). You can mix it up a bit, too, with root beer floats, sundaes and mixer flurries. Visiting on your birthday? Have a scoop on the house.
A big supporter of both local and small businesses, Pieper also sells local mustards, jams, yogurts, potato chips, bison snack sticks and elderberry syrup.
With so many regional goods at the shop, a visit to Megz brings customers closer to food that’s produced throughout northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.
“We pride ourselves in having lots of local things, and we try to have everything as local as we can get it,” Pieper said.
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
Megz Country Cheese, 42 state Route 75 in Davis, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Find it on Facebook or call 815-8655516 to place custom orders or for more information.
FSB
SHAW MEDIA FILE PHOTO
Got some more time to spare? Below is a list of some bowling alleys that are a little farther from Lake Carroll than the five highlighted on the previous pages. All lanes feature automatic scoring unless otherwise noted. Call or check online for up-to-date open bowling information and business hours.
sk most people and they’ll tell you: No one cooks quite like mom.
Ask Santay Powell, and she’ll tell you the same thing about her boyfriend’s mom, too.
When Powell met Norma Jean McLachlan, she met more than just her boyfriend Richard’s mother, she met someone who would help inspire her to not only start her own business, but help the community that made it possible.
Powell loved the McLachlan Family’s jerk chicken, curry, oxtail, goat meat and other Jamaican cuisine so much that she wanted to share
it with others — so she made a business out of it, and for the past seven years, Powell has served the Jamaican food she’s come to love from her carryout restaurant, Duckman’s Jerk Shack, in Freeport’s Piety Hill neighborhood, about a halfhour drive from Lake Carroll.
It’s an aroma familiar to neighbors, and enticing to drivers approaching Duckman’s: the inviting smell of meat cooked on an outdoor grill and spicy jerk sauce drifting from the small limestone building on South Galena Avenue. It’s a unique blend of spices and seasoning that you don’t often find in this region; they’re more at home in larger cities, like Chicago, where Powell was born.
Where does it get its distinctive flavor? Therein lies the rub. Jerk-style cooking is native to Jamaica (its name believed to derive from the Spanish word charqui, for meat cut into strips and dried) and is characterized by its hot, spicy flavor, which comes from its jerk spice rub. Its main ingredients, allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers, really turn up the temperature. For people who like to say “If it doesn’t make you sweat, it’s not spicy enough,” jerk-style cooking is just right, but for the uninitiated, it can really light up the taste buds — but don’t let that be a deterrent, Powell said. Once taste buds cool off, you can really savor the flavor.
Santay Powell (left), owner of Duckman's Jerk Shack in Freeport, serves a variety of Jamaican cuisine inspired by her boyfriend Richard's mother, Norma Jean McLachlan (right), who grew up on the Caribbean island.
and
When telling her customers about how hot it can be, she’ll tell them what she experienced for the first time: “The whole outside of my mouth was burning, and I had to drink some milk, but I loved it and it was good,” she said.
Jerk chicken, curry chicken and brown stew are among the chief Jamaican staples on Duckman’s menu, and can be ordered in whole or half choices. Curry chicken has curry powder, thyme, onions, ginger, black pepper, carrots, scallions, salt, raw garlic, onion powder and hot peppers. The brown stew is made of chicken, browning sauce (brown sugar and water), tomatoes, seasoned salt, carrots and potatoes.
CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM
Jerk chicken served with rice
Oxtail, which is a cut of meat from cattle’s tail, also is part of popular Jamaican cuisine; it too has browning sauce, as well as thyme, onions, ginger, black pepper, carrots, allspice, seasoned salt, garlic and onion powder. Curry goat, which shares the same ingredients as the chicken, is also is on the menu.
Not sure which one to try? Try a little of each.
“We have combos,” Powell said. “One of our customers came up with the combos. It gives them a taste and a variety.”
Powell also has taken traditional fare from other cultures and put her own jerk twist to it: chicken wings, catfish, tacos, nachos, french fries, pork chops, shrimp and rib tips come with a spicy kick to them. The jerk wings also come served as a burrito.
Looking for Duckman’s?
Vegetarian options are available. The yard salad comes with mixed veggies, strawberries, red onions, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, scallions, red and green peppers, cucumbers, plantains, mango sauce and Caribbean ranch. The jerk salad comes with most of the same ingredients, but with a special house sauce. The stir fry has a Caribbean twist to it: snow peas, water chestnuts, broccoli, plantains, carrots, green onions, fresh garlic, onions and special seasoning served with white rice. Veggie
When the grill is fired up, you can just follow your nose. Otherwise, keep your eyes peeled for a shack that used to be a castle — Prince Castle, a restaurant chain started in 1928 by Earl Prince, whose distinctive and diminutive castle-like locations could be found throughout northern Illinois, serving up burgers, “One-in-a-Million” malts, and ice cream cones from a square scoop. Want to read more about Prince Castle’s history? Check out Shaw Media’s spring 2021 issue of Sterling-Rock Falls Living, at issuu.com/ shawmedia/docs/svm sterling rock falls livin spring 2021.
burritos and wraps also are available.
Side dishes include candied yams, corn peppers, steamed cabbage, rice, plantains, jerk-flavored corn bread, macaroni and cheese and jerk curry red potatoes. Whistles can be whetted with Jamaican varieties of ginger beer, Jamaican pineapple cola, champagne and coconut soda; cans of traditional soda also are served.
Want to spice up a party or other event you’re hosting? Duckman’s also has catering.
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It wasn’t long after Powell first sunk her teeth into jerk-style cooking for her to decide to turn it into a business, and she got plenty of support from her boyfriend.
“He was talking about it one day, and at the time I hadn’t found a job yet,” Powell said. “I went to Highland [Community College] and took its food sanitation class, and from there we just kept talking about it and started buying stuff and looking for places.”
Her decision also got a boost from city leaders, business owners and local media. In 2016, the Freeport Housing Authority and the Journal-Standard daily newspaper organized the Freeport Fish Tank business pitch competition — a concept similar to the ABC reality show “Shark Tank” — where aspiring business owners could pitch their ideas and gain support and starter money from the community and other local businesses. Powell entered the competition and came away with a third-place prize of $1,000.
Of all of the competitors, Powell was the first to open her business. She began across the street from her current location in 2017, in a former gas station — but even as she got all her ducks in a row, she was already eyeing another location: the former longtime home of a Prince Castle ice cream shop, where she would eventually move. She’s been there for the past year now.
Each participant in the Fish Tank competition needed to have a mentor, and Powell looked no further than those close to her: Norma Jean was at her side the whole time, lending a hand and offering advice.
“She brings a lot of the heart and soul,” Powell said.
She also brought a name to Powell’s business.
“Duckman” was a childhood nickname of Norma Jean’s, who grew up in the impoverished Rose Town neighborhood of Kingston, the Jamaican capital. She emigrated to the United States in 1988 with her family and worked at Norwegian American Hospital in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, but she never forgot her roots. Once settled, Norma Jean set about helping improve life where she grew up.
She established the nonprofit Norma Jean McLachlan Foundation in 2011, which works primarily to serve the youth and elderly in underserved communities in Jamaica and in the Chicagoland area. She and her family have raised money to help those in need with food, community meals, school supplies and clothing, and McLachlan says she’d also like to extend her foundation’s reach to Freeport one day.
Jerk nachos
Duckman’s Jerk Shack, 715 S. Galena Ave. in Freeport, is open from noon to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Find it on Facebook or TikTok, go to duckmansjerkshack. com or call 815-6165820 to arrange an order or for more information.
The Norma Jean McLachlan Foundation ... Go to njmfoundation.org to learn more about the foundation and its mission to support youth and elderly in Kingston, Jamaica.
“My feeling has been to never forget where I came from,” McLachlan said. “The struggle was real. I got out of that struggle, and I want to help other people in the struggle. This is my dream to do something for my community.” Powell is helping make that dream come true. Her business has allowed her to lend a hand to others, too. If there’s a neighbor in need, whether they’re struggling with hunger or tragedy, she’s willing to lend a hand, and some food, to help make their lives better. She’s also provided food for local functions as well. Freeport is a city that helped give her the opportunity to own a business, and she’s returning the favor.
“As we’ve become a pillar inside our community, we’ve had some people in the neighborhood come up to us and tell us about someone in need,” Powell said. “That’s when we’ll let them know about Norma Jean’s foundation. ... That kind of makes our relationship better to get everything we need for them. They’ve become friends with us, they’ll come and buy food from us, so why not help them out?”
It’s a pillar built on a foundation of food from Jamaica, and heartfelt gratitude from the heartland. For Powell, variety isn’t the only spice of life, generosity is, too.
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
