Texan’s Unusual Childhood Dream Comes True After a Half-Century

Trisha Hope has had a keen interest in politics since girlhood. She became a delegate to the 2024 GOP convention in honor of her deceased mother.

Trisha Hope, 60, a Texas delegate to the Republican National Convention, poses with her patriotic cowboy hat at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis., on July 16, 2024. The Epoch Times/Janice Hisle

MILWAUKEE—When Trisha Hope was a little girl, she sat next to her mother on a rattan couch at their Texas home, watching the Republican National Convention (RNC) on TV with wide-eyed wonder.

“I was just so enthralled with the costumes and the hats and all that,” Ms. Hope, now a few months shy of 61, said, recounting a memory that made a big impression on her 52 years ago.

After watching the 1972 GOP convention in Miami, which resulted in the nomination of President Richard Nixon for a second term, the little girl vowed to her mother, Irene Psencik, that she would become an RNC delegate someday.

“I made her that promise, and she was so excited that I was paying attention to politics at nine years old,” said Ms. Hope, a Texas delegate to the 2024 GOP convention in Milwaukee—a role she fulfilled in honor of her mom.

In an interview at the convention, Ms. Hope told The Epoch Times that watching the convention with her mother when she was young was a special memory because “she and I didn’t have a lot of alone time together.” Ms. Psencik was a mother of six.

Regional Garb Adds Spirit

Like other members of the 2024 Texas delegation, Ms. Hope wore a cowboy hat during the RNC.

But hers was dressed up with attention-getting extras, including a “Terminator” bobblehead doll that looks like former President Donald Trump and mock 4^th-of-July rockets. She estimates she and her hat were photographed about 100 times throughout the gathering.