Dixon Mayor Donald Sheets (left) and Michael Oecknigk, Burgermeister of Herzberg, Germany, conduct a press conference at Dixon's City Hall this morning. Oecknigk is leading a delegation from Dixon's sister city on an official good-will tour of Dixon which began Sunday and will continue through July 8.

	German visitor Marco Schoenrock, 19, of Herzberg, Germany talks with his host family, Les Govig and his wife, Kay in front of the Dixon City Hall Sunday evening. Eleven residents of Herzberg arrived Sunday for a 10-day Sister City visit to Dixon.

Sister City delegation is 'happy, excited'

"I am looking forward to completing a cloverleaf. Finding a four-leaf clover would be the best luck of all," Burgermeister Michael Oecknigk said this morning. Oecknigk is the Burgermeister (Mayor) of Herzberg, Germany.

Speaking through an interpreter, Oecknigk reminded his guests his town has sister city relationships with three other communities in Germany and Poland. Completing Sister City arrangements with Dixon would be like finding a four-leaf clover, he said.

"We are very happy and excited about being here and are looking forward to spending a lot of time with the host families and getting to know everything about Dixon," Oecknigk said during a brief press conference at city hall this morning.

Oecknigk said he was also looking forward to a tour of the Dixon Correctional Center.

Eleven residents of Dixon's Sister City, Herzberg, Germany, arrived in Dixon on Sunday to begin a 10-day stay here. The group had left Berlin more than 16 hours earlier. They had a two-hour layover in London before arriving at Chicago's O'Hare Field. They were greeted by Dixon Mayor Donald Sheets, Sister Cities President Carol Jones, Charles and Alberta Nusbaum and Karin Floto of the Dixon Sister Cities Association.

The Herzberg residents were treated to a two-hour Sauk Trails bus tour of Chicago and then driven to Dixon where host families met them.

Oecknigk said he was particularly struck by a verse he read on a wall of Mayor Donald Sheets' residence Sunday evening. "Friendship is the best gift of all," Oecknigk said. he had visited Tinley Park earlier this decade. When asked his first impressions, Oecknigk said he was very shocked at the changes since his visit there.

"I am looking forward to meeting all of the citizens of Dixon and spending a lot of time with them as well as the host families," Oecknigk said. "I am looking forward to signing the Sister City contract and celebrating it with as many citizens as possible."

The mayor said the citizens will benefit with the new relationship between the two cities. Since four Dixon residents went to Herzberg a year ago, the new hospital has been completed at a cost of 100 million marks. In August the community will have the grand opening of a sports center which will be shared by two schools.

"All streets are under construction and the drivers are not very happy. They have to drive very slowly and they are not used to it," Oecknigk related.

Sheets chimed in, "Knowing the Burgermeister as I do, I know he hates to see drivers driving like snails."

Herzberg is about 60 miles south of Berlin and is a community begun some 814 years ago. Some buildings are old and have to be reconstructed.

Sheets noted one of Dixon's older buildings - the Nachusa House - is also being renovated.

Monday's shcedule began with an 8:30 a.m. press conference at city hall, then it was on to a tour of city and county offices including the city fire and police departments, the 911 building, the courthouses and the Telegraph. Monday afternoon the group was scheduled to tour downtown Dixon and the Ronald Reagan home before a public reception at Lowell Park at 6 p.m.

On Tuesday, the Herzberg delegation will tour the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Loveland Community House, Lee County Historic Center and Heritage Square before meeting Dixon Noon Lions Club members. Other plans for Tuesday include an afternoon boat ride on the Rock River and a tour of the John Deere home in Grand Detour.