6/20/2004:
Teddy Roosevelt was a man who cherished family life, so it was fitting for the State Historical Society of North Dakota to choose Father’s Day 2001 for hosting a family-style barbecue in Roosevelt’s honor at the North Dakota Heritage Center.
The event was part of a state tour of Roosevelt’s Medal of Honor, the Nation’s highest military honor, given to TR posthumously in January 2001. Senator Kent Conrad and Tweed Roosevelt, TR’s great grandson, led a three-year effort to persuade Congress and President Clinton to award the medal.
Tweed, an investment adviser from Boston, co-owns – with Mark Hamilton – North Dakota’s “Wild Things Galleries,” and for the tour, the two men commissioned Towner artist, Andy Knudson, to create a special full-color portrait of TR with the Medal of Honor. The medal itself is now displayed in the Roosevelt Room of the Whitehouse next to the late President’s 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm