[1] He received his early education in Columbia County, Wisconsin, and then attended Oshkosh State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh).
He continued in that office until December 1937, when he was appointed a Wisconsin circuit court judge by Governor Philip La Follette.
Hughes alleged that Rector, who had been appointed from an administrative role as deputy state attorney general, did not have sufficient trial experience to warrant a seat on the high court.
Hughes won 61% of the vote in the April 1947 election,[6] becoming the first person to defeat an incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in nearly 40 years.
[7] Despite being elected to a ten-year term, after just two years rumors began to circulate that Hughes was planning to quit the court.
Initially it was rumored that he might be planning to challenge senator McCarthy in the 1952 Senate primary,[8] but ultimately, when Hughes announced his resignation in August 1951, he returned to his law practice, stating that he could not support his family on the salary of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice (then $10,000 per year, or $117,000 adjusted for inflation to 2023).