If you parked around the corner from the Ithaca Commons, on S. Cayuga St. during the afternoon, you might find yourself behind a black Ford 150 XLT with specialty plates reading "I-Pierce."
     This truck belongs to Ron and Dawn Stiehl, co-founders of Stiehl's Body Modification Station. They commute 55 minutes to Ithaca every morning from Towanda, Penn., and wouldn't trade their jobs for the world. "We love the people we meet," says Ron. "They're not typical."
     Dawn, 33, was born and raised in Towanda and graduated from Sayre High School in 1983. Ron, 55, grew up in Allentown, Penn., and served in the Navy for a few years. Neither had any interest in body piercing before they met each other. Dawn had some earrings and eventually had her nose pierced, but it wasn't until much later that the couple decided to make piercing their life.
     Dawn has over 50 body piercings, including her nose, ears, eyebrow, librette, tongue, nipples, clitoris, and outer labia. And if you saw her in the summer, you would also know that she's tattooed from head to toe.
     "I've had mothers in stores pull their children away from me," says Dawn, laughing. Her bleached, whitish-blonde hair is chopped short and shaved up four inches up the back. This, along with her piercings and the combination of her blue eyes and violet contact lenses, illustrates her open-minded style.
     Ron certainly doesn't look like a stereotypical body piercer. His long mane of curly gray hair is tied back conservatively into a ponytail and his mustache and goatee are nicely trimmed. He has a stern, yet kind, face and looks much younger than his age. But Ron does have six piercings of his own, including his ears, nipples, and genitalia.
     "My most memorable piercing experience was giving Ron his first piercing," says Dawn, laughing. "It was a genital piercing." Dawn has also done a nipple piercing for the Might Might Bosstones' saxophone player.
     The Stiehls met eight years ago when Dawn was bartending in a small bar called The Towanda Inn. They went on their first date New Year's Eve of 1991 and they've now been married for more than six years.
     Dawn has one 10-year old son, Logan, and she and Ron also have custody of his three children from a previous marriage. Logan got his first earring when he was four and has added more every year. Now he's concentrating on stretching them, and already has an eight-gauge in one hole and a twelve-gauge in another.
     Besides their jobs, the Stiehls love camping, usually locally so they don't have to close the shop. Every summer, they attend the Ithaca Grass Roots Festival and enjoy camping down in Quakertown, Penn. Along with four children, the Stiehls also have a house full of pets, including two dogs, four cats, two birds, two rats, two lizards, three frogs, and four fish.
     The Stiehls decided to open up their own body modification place because there was nothing like it in the Ithaca area. Dawn's mother was a drug councilor in Ithaca for many years so they knew the area well. The two colleges also make Ithaca an ideal location, plus it's not too far from Syracuse and Binghamton.
     The couple does about 30 piercings a week, averaging about 1,500 a year. Business slows down slightly when IC and CU students go home for the summer, but there's still a good number of Ithacans who attend school elsewhere and then return in the summer.
     Stiehls is a small shop but has a large selection of body jewelry. Both Ron and Dawn do piercing and you can choose whomever you are more comfortable with. Also, books on the counter will explain all the different types of piercings available. The shop comes across as both serious and relaxed at the same time.
     "Stiehl's is so professional and clean I feel like I'm in a doctor's office," says Ithaca College graduate Nathan Koch, who has two earrings and a septum ring. "Dawn is the perfect mix of being both professional and motherly."
     Views have changed a lot over the last decade. 10 years ago, someone with a nose or eyebrow ring working in a professional setting was unheard of.
     "Old-school views are ridiculous!" exclaims Dawn. "My neighbors don't like me, and it's only because of my piercings."
     "Now some of it [piercing] is becoming socially acceptable," says Ron. "You'd be surprised how many doctors and lawyers are pierced under their clothing, and how many of them bring in their children to be pierced."
     The most common piercing done at Stiehl's are belly button and tongue, followed by upper ear and eyebrow. "There are trends with the weather," says Ron. "In the summer we do more belly buttons because girls like to show them off, and in the winter we do more tongues than anything else."
     Ron believes that more women come in to get pierced than men. Some individuals get piercings to make a social statement, but the majority do it primarily for decorative purposes.
     Ithaca College junior Julia Lundegaard says, "I've had about fifteen piercings and have been to seven different piercing parlors. And I trust Stiehl's above all of them because they take the time to talk to you and explain things to you. At other places, I've had weird infections and problems. The Stiehls know what they're doing."
     The strangest piercing anyone ever asked the Stiehls to do was an ankle, but they wouldn't do it. Many would most likely be torn out by socks, plus the skin there is very thin.
     "We don't do animals either," says Dawn. "Several people have asked us to do their dog's ears, but we don't do it. The dogs would scratch at their ears and cause infections."
     The Stiehls are conservative and professional with their body piercing. Along with not piercing animals, they also don't do any under-the-skin piercing. In the future, however, they may do some skin branding.
     "We have done scar tissue," says Ron. "One girl, who had been in a serious car wreck, had an abdominal scar and wanted it pierced. We think of that as piercing deformities due to surgery. But we don't do anything in terms of self-mutilation. Absolutely not. We do professional body piercing only."
     There's currently only one branch of Stiehl's but in the future, they're hoping to expand to a bigger store and eventually get a computer and make a web page.
     If you're curious or concerned about body piercing, the Stiehls are friendly and informative. They are honest and always happy to explain their procedures to people. "We welcome people to come down if they're apprehensive," says Ron.