SALISBURY — Lakeville resident Rachel Marshall is preparing to ride across Massachusetts in the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC), an annual bike-a-thon that brings together more than 6,000 riders. But Marshall isn’t clipping in for the athletic pursuit or the accolades. She is riding for the second year to honor her late father, Jon Siegel, who died in February after a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
“It’s really about the experience and being there for each other, showing up, philanthropy and the connections along the way,” Marshall said of the ride, which has grown over the past 50 years into one of the most successful athletic fundraisers.
Although the PMC will officially take place Aug. 1 and 2, a tradition known as "Day Zero" brings riders to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, creating an unofficial starting point for riders looking to go the extra mile. Started by Siegel and Team Huckleberry Captain, Dave, the tradition became known as riding "a true Pan-Mass." The Hucks, for short, in addition to several other teams, continue that legacy and will begin their 2026 ride in Stockbridge on July 31. With multiple routes and starting points, the event ultimately concludes on Cape Cod.
Marshall poses with her dad, Jon Siegel, on a bike at a block party in Massachusetts. They rode together on neighborhood trails, beginning a tradition of riding with and for each other.Provided
For decades, Marshall volunteered at the PMC, supporting her father and his team, making posters and welcoming riders at the finish line. Friends and family would ask whether she might ride herself someday.
“When Dad got diagnosed, I thought, ‘Well, I have to ride. I have to.’”
After Siegel’s diagnosis, the father-daughter duo — along with the Hucks — started and finished the ride together, taking an iconic post-ride photo with each lifting their bikes above their heads.
Rachel Marshall (right) and late father Jon Siegel, hoist their bikes in the air at the Provincetown Inn finish line on Cape Cod after riding in their first and only ride as a father-daughter duo in 2025. The ride marked Siegel's final PMC, and he rode tandem with his brother.Provided
“Before, it was just something that I was proud of my dad for doing,” Marshall said, describing her father as a positive and selfless person. “He was doing something that was part of his identity, part of who he was, and being in service to others.”
Marshall said the Hucks are more than a team. They’re a family, and they have supported her through the loss of her father. She recently biked to his grave with team member Ellen, whom she calls her “Huck mom.” When Marshall needed to buy and fit her first real road bike after Siegel’s diagnosis, members of the Hucks went with her.
“I had a village,” she said.
Last year, Marshall raised just over $19,000. Ahead of the 2026 ride, she has raised more than $23,000 toward a goal of $25,000. The PMC donates 100% of every rider-raised dollar to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and has raised more than $1 billion to date.
Marshall said the camaraderie and atmosphere surrounding the ride are uplifting.
“If you ever feel like you’re giving up on the world, go to a Pan-Mass event,” she smiled.
There’s a saying that the Huckleberry team lives by: “No Huck left behind.”
For Marshall, that mantra has taken on meaning far beyond the miles traveled by bike. It was the pull to ride alongside her father after his diagnosis, the support of the Hucks after his death, and the draw to continue pedaling after his death.
In addition to riding with her late father in the 2025 Pan-Mass Challenge, Marshall was a lifelong PMC volunteer. Pictured with father Jon Siegel (middle), Marshall historically volunteered at Mass Maritime in Bourne, Massachusetts, where she welcomed riders to the finish line. Her poster represents Team Huckleberry's mantra: 'No Huck Left Behind.'Provided
While reflecting on the challenges of caring for her father through glioblastoma, Marshall said she was grateful to be there for him after the care he had given her over the years.
When Marshall struggled with addiction, it was her father who discovered Mountainside Treatment Center in North Canaan, where she eventually found a place to rebuild her life.
“I wouldn’t be where I am without my dad’s engagement, involvement and understanding of this disease,” she said.
After leaving Mountainside as a patient, Marshall later returned as an employee, taking on increasing responsibilities throughout her tenure.
When she eventually left Mountainside, Marshall saw an opportunity to support people in a different way. Inspired by the example her father set of showing up for others and serving his community, she founded The Rusted Rock, which provides personal support services focused on executive functioning, life transitions, recovery support, and navigating periods of feeling "stuck.
“I want people to understand that they can love themselves, and that life can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be a challenge to walk through it every day.”
Donations for Team Huckleberry can be made at http://profile.pmc.org/rs0242
KK Kozik in her studio
It is a particularly fitting philosophy for an artist whose paintings often begin with the world around her but rarely end there. There might be something recognizable — a stone wall, an apple tree, a crow — but then there is something less certain. Something that appears to be one thing becomes another upon inspection. Memory gets involved. So does imagination. So does time.
Since moving from New York City to Sharon, Connecticut in 2006, the landscape around her has become increasingly important to that process.
“I just saw things differently,” Kozik said.
The change was not immediate. She remembers an earlier version of herself driving through Vermont without paying much attention to what was happening beyond the windshield.
“I didn’t have the means to see what was happening around me,” she said. “I just sort of la, la, la, la, la, driving to Vermont.”
But, she said, she started to pay attention differently.
“I became more sensitized as time went on,” she said.
Asked whether that change came with age, she said, “Age and so-called wisdom.”
There’s a sense of loss in her landscapes, but a particular kind of loss that also has a twinge of redemption. Specifically, what happens to a landscape when people leave it?
“When the people go away, the wildlife comes back,” Kozik said.
KK Kozik in her studio with her painting “Golden Delicious.”Natalia Zukerman
Kozik’s work has never settled into a single recognizable formula. She has painted landscapes, figures and still lifes, moved toward abstraction and returned to representation. Her subjects change, but the underlying impulse remains: to take what is in front of her and discover what else there might be.
Kozik describes herself as someone who is always trying to figure things out. Her paintings often have the feeling of a thought in progress rather than a conclusion. They have been called “single-line novellas,” a description that makes sense: They can contain the suggestion of an entire story without telling you exactly what happened.
The animals are part of that storytelling.
They arrived partly because of what was disappearing.
“They were like the new redemption in a way,” she said.
There is something almost funny about the way Kozik talks about this — not because the loss itself is funny, but because she refuses to turn it into a grand pronouncement. She observes something, considers it, and lets it complicate the work.
That same sensibility comes through when she talks about her own development as an artist. Her paintings make room for interpretation. They don’t always tell the viewer what an animal symbolizes, or why a landscape has been altered, or where a particular image came from. Instead, they leave enough evidence to make you curious and enough room for your own stories.
The effect is not accidental. Kozik has spent years thinking about how images work, both as paintings and as containers for ideas.
Her work is currently included in “The Naturalist,” a group exhibition on view through Sept. 13 at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, alongside Richard Klein, Sally Maca, Rick Shaefer and Tricia Wright. The exhibition brings together artists whose work engages with the natural world, including its forms, histories and mysteries.
Kozik is an especially apt fit for the exhibition. She is described by the gallery as a landscape painter, figurative painter and interiors/still-life painter whose work frequently moves toward painterly abstraction. Her practice, the gallery notes, is “fluid and continuous” — always searching for new pictorial problems to solve.
That search has also extended beyond her own studio.
For several years, Kozik ran ICEHOUSE Project Space, an 18th-century icehouse on Sharon’s town green that she transformed into an unusual venue for contemporary art. It opened in 2018 with Dan Devine’s “Inside-Out NASCAR” and went on to host site-specific projects by artists including Mark Dion, Eric Aho, Janet Biggs, Richard Klein, Kristin Jones, Lisa Hoke and Ryan Frank. The projects addressed everything from the decline of winged insects and native and invasive plants to Sharon’s iron industry, its gardens and its history as an ice-producing community.
The space is now closed, but its premise still feels connected to Kozik’s painting practice. Each project responded in some way to the physical location, turning what might otherwise have been a little historic outbuilding into a setting for contemporary art.
Kozik’s own work does something similar with the landscape. She takes a place and lets it become more than a place.
Kozik’s paintings tell us that something happened before we arrived, and that something will happen after we leave.
And then there is the question of what to do with the space in between.
Maybe Kozik’s paintings are less about that space and more about an idea, as she put it, of “which questions to think about.”
Jazzmine Bone and A Stitch in Tyme power through the Gambler’s Choice run during the 2024 Lakeville Open.
The event, which has been held continuously for 69 years, is open to the public with free admission.
Individual competitions will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and visitors can stop by briefly or settle in for the day.
A food truck, bake sale and portable restrooms will be available on-site.
The show is the primary fundraiser for The Lakeville Pony Club, with proceeds supporting young riders who need financial assistance to participate in lessons. Members and their families work throughout the year to create the event for both competitors and spectators.
Members of the Lakeville Pony Club and Echo the pony arrive for the costume class during the Lakeville Open in 2024.Caitlin Von Graf
For those new to horse shows, the day offers a chance to learn more about the sport and understand what happens in the ring. In equitation competitions, judges evaluate the rider’s skill, from beginners learning walk and trot to more advanced riders navigating cantering and jumping courses.
Hunter competitions focus on the horse’s style and smoothness over fences, while jumper classes emphasize accuracy and speed as horses and riders race against the clock without knocking down rails.
The day also includes a crowd favorite: the costume class, where horses and riders dress up in creative ensembles for a chance at the top prize.
Programs will be available onsite to help spectators identify competitors and horses. A full list of competitions, entry information and details for those interested can be found at rigameadow.com
Whether an experienced equestrian or simply curious about the sport, the Lakeville Open Horse Show offers a chance to enjoy a Hudson Valley tradition that continues to bring the community together.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
