Dixon’s Vaile Park basketball courts to be named in honor of Larry and Louise Reed

DIXON – Larry and Louise Reed have loved sports for a long time.

In fact, the two met when Larry and a co-worker played tennis with Louise and her sister.

“It was quite obvious he was an athlete, but maybe not a tennis player,” Louise said. “We had a love game, in more than one way.”

Then there’s the story of when Larry first drove into Dixon.

He went past the high school, saw lights on in the gym and stopped to see what was going on, Louise said. Inside, people were playing basketball.

“An official came to the door and said, ‘Are you looking for someone?’ Larry said, ‘No, I just got into town,’” Louise said. The official asked Larry if he played basketball and, if so, if he had the proper shoes to play in, she said.

Larry did, so he got his shoes out of his trunk and played basketball, Louise said.

“He did not have a place to stay, and he just started playing basketball,” she said.

In the decades since moving to Dixon, Larry entrenched himself in the community, Louise always right by his side.

The Reeds are active members of St. Paul Lutheran Church, the YMCA, Dixon Park District and the Dixon Riverfront Commission, as well as regular attendees at Dixon High School sports games, although none of their eight grandkids go there.

“The main thing that sticks out to me, specifically for both of them, is wherever you went, you saw them together. Always together,” said Seth Nicklaus, Dixon Park District recreation director. “The stories were intertwined together, they finished each other’s sentences and just always smiles on their faces, always positive conversations.”

Sadly, it won’t be for much longer. Larry, who turned 84 on Wednesday, May 8, is in hospice with terminal bladder cancer. He doesn’t have much longer to live, Louise said.

The Dixon Park District wants the Reeds to know their impact hasn’t gone unnoticed: It announced plans to name the basketball court at Vaile Park, which is set to be renovated this year, the Larry and Louise Reed Basketball Courts in honor of the couple.

“I believe great projects could be named after great people,” Park District Executive Director Duane Long said. “It’s as easy as that for me. And especially a youth project; Larry and Louise are all about the youth.”

In January, the Dixon Park District received a $68,200 Open Spaces Land Acquisition and Development grant to upgrade the basketball court at Vaile Park.

OSLAD is a state-financed program with dedicated funding through a portion of the state’s real-estate transfer tax. It is offered through the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Recipients can get up to $600,000 for development/renovation projects or up to $1.725 million for acquisition projects, on a dollar-to-dollar match.

Almost $55 million was awarded to 111 park projects throughout Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker announced Jan. 30. Since its establishment, OSLAD has awarded almost $585 million.

Dixon Park District’s total project cost will be $136,400. The project involves resurfacing, repaving and painting the basketball court at Vaile Park, installing acrylic basketball backboard hoops, tearing down three sides of the fencing, removing three overhanging trees and installing LED lights that will be free to use until 11 p.m. each night.

Currently, there’s one basketball court, but the redesign includes the addition of a second full-sized court, Long said.

The backboard hoops will feature the logos of Trinity Financial and Pest Control Consultants, which helped sponsor the renovations, Nicklaus said.

“That’s the most-used basketball court in Dixon,” Long said in a previous interview. “There’s 15 to 20 kids down there a night in the evening. Some of them ride their bikes, some drive cars. That tells you the age range that uses it.”

Bidding for the pavement went out in mid-April, and bids for other parts of the project will go out later, Long said.

They’re hoping to have a grand opening the second week in August, but the final date will depend on weather and other factors, he said