A 12-foot-high cross in Parleys Canyon memorializes Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Harris, who died there in 1982 while chasing a speeder.
Thanks to a Tuesday federal court ruling, Harris' cross and 13 others marking the deaths of UHP troopers will continue to stand alongside state highways.
"I am just beyond delighted," Harris' widow, Andrea Augenstein, told The Tribune. "We made this sacrifice along with him, and we get to have this symbol of what happened.
"It's who we are," she added. "We tell everyone we know, 'Look for the cross.'"
The ruling by U.S. District Judge David Sam was a blow to American Atheists Inc., a Texas-based group that filed suit two years ago claiming the crosses are religious symbols that have no place on public lands or bearing the beehive emblem of the UHP.
But Salt Lake attorney Brian Barnard said the Atheists will appeal Sam's ruling to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"There's no question these troopers should be honored," Barnard said. "Lets just to do it in a way that does not emphasize religion."
UHP Lt. Lee Perry, president of the Utah Highway Patrol Association (UHPA), which started the cross placement project in 1998, said the group's intent was never ''to push religion off on anyone.''
Rather, he said, the crosses send a public service message to drivers and tell the public where troopers have died or been mortally injured.
"We always say, they are gone but not forgotten," Perry said.
He said the crosses also acknowledge a debt to the troopers' families.
"One of our missions is to take care of the widows and orphans of fallen troopers," he said. "We want to let the families know they are still part of the department. They are not here physically, but they are always in our minds."
The UHPA is the only group allowed by the Utah Department of Transportation to erect memorials along highways.
Each cross features the UHP logo, the name and badge number of the trooper and a plaque providing passers-by with a biography of the fallen trooper.
Assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas D. Roberts said, ''The cross is a recognized symbol of death.''
In a 28-page decision, Judge Sam agreed.
Upon examining the purpose and context of the crosses, the judge found they communicate a secular rather than a religious message.
Sam noted that American military cemeteries display crosses to represent the death of public servants. And the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control uses the cross in its billboard campaign against drinking and driving.
The judge also noted that less than a quarter of Utah's population belong to a religion that uses the cross as a religious icon. The majority of Utahns, 57 percent, belong to the LDS Church, which does not use the cross for religious purposes.
Most of Utah's fallen troopers were LDS Church members, and no other group has asked to set up any different kind of memorial for troopers. But the UHPA said that upon request another symbol, such as a Star of David for a Jewish trooper, would be accommodated.
Barnard seized on that as a chink in the UHPA argument that the cross is a universal symbol of death.
"If they are willing to put up a Star of David, it defeats the claim that there is a public safety message," Barnard said. "There is no general concept of 'drive safely' behind a Star of David."
Barnard said his clients would support an American flag or a tombstone as a symbol recognizing death in the line of service.
But a cross, he said, "undoubtedly symbolizes the death of a Christian."
Augenstein called the Atheists' suit "frivolous" and "foolish."
"All the money that had to be spent could have done so much more good in the Christmas stockings of the children of highway patrol troopers, or to give those guys a raise," she said.
But Perry acknowledged the right of the Atheists to sue.
"They have a right to do what they did," Perry said. "That's what all 14 of these troopers believed in - the right to speak up and be heard.
"We're just glad the process worked. We're grateful for the way it turned out."