This piece originally ran in the October 2024 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
Linda Thorn, EAA 842022, was honored at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2024 as the Dorothy Hilbert Volunteer Award winner. Linda is from a small town near West Bend, Wisconsin, and she started volunteering for EAA around 23 years ago, falling in love with the work and the people she’s been able to help. Linda started volunteering by accident. She used to attend AirVenture just to bring her sons up to see their uncle, but a friend of hers, Joe Schumacher, needed help in the new building for air operations. She could tell he was struggling for volunteers that year, so she offered to help out one day, and the rest was history. “Joe asked if I would come back and take on the position [as chairman of the building],” Linda said. “I love Joe Schumacher … and I just found myself saying yes.” Now she has found a true love for it and couldn’t imagine her life any other way.
Winning this award means so much to Linda. She dedicates so much of her time to helping others, expecting nothing in return, but she is still forever grateful that she was chosen among so many other worthy women. “I don’t have words for it,” she said. “I can’t even feel the real emotion yet because I’m still trying to understand because there’s so many people that have been up there for so many more years than me. And it means everything.”
Linda has worked her whole life in hospitality jobs and retail and has always had a passion for helping others. “When the performers come through the door of our AirVenture building, I treat them like a guest in my home,” she said. “They’re coming to see me. They need to be treated with respect and … [see] that they’re wanted there. And that’s just what I do. That’s their home, too, and I am their host.”
Now Linda has fallen in love with the EAA team that she works so closely with. She’s made many close friends, and at the end of the week when she has to say goodbye, she chooses not to. “It’s like a big family reunion every year,” she said. “I don’t go to the wind-down party at the end because I don’t like the goodbyes. I’m a very emotional person, and I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I can’t say goodbye to these people when they walk out the door on our last day. I say, ‘I’ll just see you next year.’ That’s just the way I have to leave it.”
“Everything I do up there, it is not for accolades, it’s not for thank-yous,” Linda explained. “It’s not for attention. Everything comes from my heart. Everything I do, every word that I speak to anybody is because I truly mean it.”
Linda said to everyone thinking about volunteering for EAA to “do it” even if it’s just for one year. She doesn’t believe that you need to be invested in aviation or be nuts about airplanes and pilots, because you’re volunteering to help something greater than yourself. “Give it one year,” Linda said. “And I don’t think you’ll lose. And I don’t believe you’ll walk away without gaining something.”
Volunteers make EAA AirVenture Oshkosh — and just about everything else EAA does — possible. This space in EAA Sport Aviation is dedicated to thanking and shining the spotlight on volunteers from the community. Sadly, it cannot capture all of the thousands of volunteers who give so much to the community every year. So, next time you see a volunteer at AirVenture or elsewhere, however they are pitching in to make EAA better, be sure to thank them for it. It’s the least we can do. Do you know a volunteer you’d like to nominate for Volunteer Spotlight? Visit EAA.org/Submissions.