The Governor’s Mansion “Tribute to our Troops” tree has a Dodge County connection this year. Over 140 Gold Star Memorial Trail keepsake ornaments decorate the tree along with tiered red, white, and blue lights per the design of Linda Hughes of Cambria. She has been responsible for the design and decoration of the tree every year since its inception in 2005 when former Gov. Jim Doyle, and his wife former First Lady Jessica Doyle, wanted to honor service members killed in action with a special Christmas tree and a Gold Star family reception at the executive residence. Linda was like an aunt to the late Joshua Scott, a helicopter pilot killed in action in 2005 and Joshua’s mother Kathy thought Linda would be a perfect fit for the job, because of all the support she provides service members.
In previous years Linda had created the tree’s decorations by hand, but earlier this year she had surgery which could have prevented her from leading the tree design team this year, until she remembered the opening of the Gold Star Memorial Trail and the keepsake ornaments that were created to commemorate the event. Each of the GSMT ornaments has a hand-written name of a fallen service member, along with small dog tags which state the name of a sponsor. Linda described Dodge County’s Gold Star Memorial Trail to Governor Tony Evers and the importance of it to Gold Star families and others who want to hike or bike the trail and find peace and personally express gratitude for fallen heroes while viewing beautiful Wisconsin scenery. The Governor wanted to know the meaning of the ornaments so he could provide details of the tree to visitors.
The tree was decorated on November 21 by volunteers from the Wisconsin National Guard and its Service Member Support Division. The residence was open public tours on select dates in December. The Gold Star family reception was held on Saturday, December 14. Additional information can be found on the WI Dept. of Military Affairs website.
Thank you Linda for honoring our heroes who cannot be home for the holidays!
Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs photo by Vaughn R. Larson
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