BROKEN OAK HILL(R) Dispatches from the heart of Wisconsin 
Broken Oak Hill is an online magazine about Wisconsin's outdoor resources and treasures, particularly its forests and trees. We aim at a variety of readers, whether tree farmers or landowners, hikers or bikers or birdwatchers, as well as those who like to travel. Like its symbol, the broken oak tree, the website may not be exactly what you expect.
Woodland News and Notes reports on news and issues affecting Wisconsin's forests and woodlands in a variety of ways. At the Farm is a more personal look at tree farming, about our 47-acre tree farm in Juneau County, which is home to the broken oak. It has been in the family for almost a half century, visited by five generations who have come to walk in and work in the woods and to enjoy the area by biking and canoeing, hunting and fishing or just sitting in the sun to read a book amid the peace and quiet and beauty of central Wisconsin.
The site also feature some travel stories and information. Around Wisconsin focuses on things to do and see in our state, and Escape Wisconsin is for those times when curiousity or too much cold weather leads us elsewhere.
Broken Oak Hill will be totally independent in reporting and writing, but we welcome submissions as well as reader comments and advice. Please send comments or suggestions to editor@brokenoakhill.com.
The editor
John DeBaun, editor of this site, has worked at newspapers in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and Wisconsin and started a Navy magazine in Misawa, Japan, when he served in the U.S. Navy.
His journalism experience has included a year at the Kansas City Star and Times, where as night metro editor he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting; a career at The Milwaukee Journal that included stints as an editor on the national/world desk, the metro desk and the news desk and as a columnist; and 10 years as travel editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He has a B.S. in journalism from West Texas State University and a master's degree in Japanese studies from UW-Madison.
His home is in Waukesha County, but his heart is at the family tree farm in Juneau County. He and his wife, Gayle, are native Kansans but have lived in Wisconsin for more than 30 years. Their two sons, Nate and Matt, were born and raised in the Milwaukee area and grew up -- like many of the members of our extended family -- playing and helping at the tree farm. Nate is a corporate attorney in Waukesha County and Matt, a Navy lieutenant, is attending the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. He has served tours of duty in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Germantown.
