Pehg

Zeller

Pehg Zeller, a lifelong resident of the City of Trenton, has spent most of her life working to improve her community through her volunteerism in civic organizations, her church, and the city's government. She has been a primary force in promoting the arts to local schoolchildren, a co-coordinator of the local emergency management services program, and is voluntary vice-chair for Christian Home Care Services, a coalition of 10 area churches that supplies companionship and transportation to the elderly and homebound. Her many efforts, among which only a few are mentioned here, earned her recognition from Lt. Governor Corinne Wood in 2002 as an ?Illinois Woman of the Year.? She is recognized here, however, for her work with the Trenton Tumbleweeds Garden Club, which she joined in 1978. She has been instrumental in several garden club programs that promote the humanities in Trenton. Through Ms. Zeller's leadership, the garden club began planning trees in honor of Trenton residents both living and deceased. The annual program became so popular that it soon became necessary for the club to perform the same function in a way that conserved space. They adapted by establishing a memorial paver walk with the names of those honored and memorialized inscribed into individual pavers. Ms. Zeller also led the way in establishing the garden club's ?educational garden,? which sits in one corner of the community park. It contains a variety of flowering plants, all marked and native to the Midwest. Combined with the paver walk and surrounded by beautiful trees, the garden provides a place of quiet contemplation for members of the community and an educational experience for its children.