Woman's childhood frozen dream realized

CHILLICOTHE – Connie McCollister is living proof that dreams can be achieved, even if it takes the better part of a lifetime to realize them.

Last week, she took a short break from getting her first business venture ready to look at a framed black-and-white photo of herself and her brother, Terry, as little kids being served at a small store and ice cream shop near her childhood home in Peebles. Even then, the face looking back at the camera showed her love of such a place.

Within the next week or so, the 66-year-old Frankfort resident will realize her childhood wish to operate her own ice cream store when she and her husband, Kenneth, open the Pleasant Valley Shake Shoppe at 12755 Pleasant Valley Road.

“It’s my lifelong dream,” McCollister said. “I’ve always (wanted to own an ice cream business), probably since I was a kid.”

After a 30-year nursing career with Adena Health System and four years in the same vocation spent in Florida, McCollister found the building online about 14 months ago and decided to take the leap.

"It had been for sale for probably over a year," she said. "Initially, we weren't going to put anything into it. I grow strawberries and I just wanted to sell strawberries. Then we came down to look at it and the church that was here had moved out."

The more they looked at the building and the more that her dream pulled at her, the possibility of realizing it seemed within reach. Kenneth McCollister, a farmer and soft-spoken man, watched his wife moving about the restored building working on some finishing touches last week and said he was happy to support his wife’s dream.

With no formal business experience, however, Connie McCollister learned quickly that pitfalls can be daunting.

“Everything that could go wrong has went wrong,” she said. “We had no idea this building was in such poor shape and so instead of doing a small renovation, we had to completely remodel it.”

You’d never know it was in that bad of shape to look at the facility as it nears opening. A fresh coat of blacktop has been placed over the parking lot, the exterior looks fresh and new and the inside of the structure has a brightly colored, festive air.

While it has taken a lot of work restoring the building, she has enjoyed learning more about the structure from people who have stopped in while the renovations have been ongoing.

“Everybody who has stopped in has a story about this place,” she said. “That is neat. It was a fire department at one time.”

Others have reported on the shop’s Facebook page that they remember getting penny candy there during one of the building’s prior incarnations.

Now, however, eyes are on the future, and the couple is in the process of hiring around eight to 10 employees for the business. For visitors, there will be plenty of choices off a menu that will include ice cream, sandwiches, burgers and hot dogs.

They’ll be able to take out from a drive-thru window or relax at one of several tables inside while reading mounted signs like “Life is short, eat dessert first.”

For Connie McCollister, who has waited more than six decades for this opening day, no truer words may have ever been spoken.