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DIXON, Ill. (AP) — Where is Lisa Olson? The Kreider Services activity director is somewhere in the training room that now doubles as a music room.
There she is, banging on a bass drum along with client David Ziemke.
It's hard to pick her out of the crowd, maybe because she and her musicians have so much in common.
The facility for developmentally disabled clients has formed its own drumline, Petunia City Stix. It's the first full ensemble Olson has conducted since she conceded a dream about 30 years ago: She was going to school for music education at VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, but by the time she got to student teaching, her hearing started to fail.
"I got in the classroom, and there was absolutely no way I could tell who was saying or playing what or where," Olson, 50, said. "I couldn't hear enough to do a good job, so my music teaching career went out the door."
Hear that creak? That's the sound of a new door opening.
On June 15, the group was rehearsing for the Petunia Festival parade and for the Petunia City Brass drum corps show on Aug. 3 at Dixon High School.
When participants finally took a break 45 minutes into rehearsal, Olson had a ring of sweat around her collar. She was hoarse. She couldn't have been happier.
"The cool thing is, I guess because of the hearing loss and whatnot, it's not us and them. It's not staff and clients," she said. "It's all of us. Everybody in here has a disability. The clients do, and I do, so the fact that I get to show people with disabilities can do anything they want? That's amazing."
Frank Stransky, a 47-year-old deaf client who lives in a Kreider group home in Dixon, sidled up alongside Olson.
"Frank doesn't allow deafness to interfere with what he loves," Olson said. "He loves music. He loves to feel the music on the speakers, and at the dances. He's very involved with music, even though he's deaf. He relies a lot on the feeling of the music."
The moment Stransky learned about the group, he wanted in. Every time he was in Kreider marketing coordinator Becky Reilly's office, he'd point at the fliers for the group.
"He wanted to play the drums so bad," Reilly said, "and we said, 'Why not?'"
Stransky loves parades, as does James "Hoppi" Houghtby. Although the 75-year-old Dixon resident didn't want to be in the drumline at first, he was bitten by the music bug, too. Now he not only is in the drumline, but he also jams on African drums Thursday evenings, when Phillip Seward of DeWitt, Iowa, comes to town to teach a few dozen clients.
The hope is to incorporate the African drums into performances next year, as well as a rendition of the national anthem by Penny Ray, 62, of Dixon, who's also deaf. She's taking xylophone and marimba lessons from Olson. They're also working on "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and scales.
Olson, who joined Kreider in 2000, took over as activity director in earnest a few years ago. Strapped by state funding, the facility needed someone energetic as well as innovative. Even before she took the new title, Olson brought drums into her classes on dealing with loss, and music of all sorts into the sign language classes she teaches. She's assembled groups of caroling clients during the holiday season.
"Lisa is one of the best people around at taking a skill and adapting it for developmentally disabled people," Reilly said.
You need look no further than that band room for her credentials. She's customized music scores for the clients, with big Xs below the words on which they should strike their instruments. Ray's marimba is color-coded with stickers corresponding with the music.
So, if funds are so strapped, how did Petunia City Stix get its equipment?
Enter Romero Martinez and Michael Boo.
Martinez, a 59-year-old Rock Falls resident, teaches music at a few high schools, including Rock Falls High.
Boo is the chief writer for Drum Corps International, the nonprofit governing body for junior drum and bugle corps in the U.S. and Canada. His brother, Barry, happens to be a Kreider client.
Boo, who lives in Chesterton, Indiana, posted a request for gear on Facebook and within 24 hours, more than 200 pairs of sticks arrived at Kreider, along with $200 in cash. Premier stickmaker Vic Firth sent a "remarkable number of sticks," Boo said, and drums and more gear just keep showing up.
Martinez, meanwhile, has been repurposing outdated gear his schools otherwise would have thrown out or stored. He built custom carriers from leftover gear to hold the plastic buckets that double as drums, and he got Do It Best to donate buckets.
"I saw how they were carrying those buckets, and they had a rope around their neck to hold them in place," he said. "They were holding cymbals with duct tape. Sure, some of the gear I got from the schools is old and outdated, but those were really nice models in 1995. I can make it work, and somebody can get some use out of it."
"Romero is just a remarkable person who spreads the love of drumming and percussion," Boo said.
Last year, the Petunia City Brass show, a showcase of some of the best drum corps nationwide, became a fundraiser for Kreider and Lee County Council on Aging.
Originally, the plan was to augment this year's event by bringing in Free Spirit Drumline, an ensemble made up of developmentally disabled percussionists from New York.
"Then the light bulb went on," Reilly said. "Why don't we start our own drumline?"
Petunia City Stix will perform "We Will Rock You" by Queen on the buckets, and "Happy" by Pharrell Williams on the drums, at its upcoming gigs.
That second tune couldn't be more appropriate.
Wednesday, client Brian Mezo sang along while reading the music and playing alongside his sister, Vicki Cover, a Kreider volunteer. To his right was her daughter, Katie, who also volunteers.
Everywhere you looked were smiles, and from every musician came the unmistakable sound of fun.
It's as if, with the formation of Petunia City Stix, a dam has broken. Who knows what will come next?
For now, "I just wanted to do the drums," Stransky signed, his wide-open mouth smiling bigger than life. "I'm so happy. Very happy."
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Source: The (Dixon) Telegraph, http://bit.ly/293oTqU
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Information from: Dixon Telegraph, http://www.saukvalley.com
This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by The (Dixon) Telegraph.
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