A volunteer search-and-rescue team from one of Wyoming’s smallest counties won a customized Land Rover Defender 130 and $30,000 on Saturday, a prize members say they need after rescue calls nearly quadrupled and county funding was cut almost in half.
Big Horn County Search and Rescue took the Search, Rescue & Emergency Support Services Award, presented by Pelican, at the 2026 Defender Service Awards during Destination Defender in Temecula, California.
Coordinator Jeff Schmidt was in the room, about 1,000 miles from home, after convincing himself the team would finish second.
“I was super nervous,” Schmidt said. “I’m like, there is no way we’re going to win.”
The next day, speaking from San Diego International Airport before flying home, he still sounded stunned.
“I still have a hard time believing we won.”
In Lovell, 30 to 40 supporters packed the community center to watch the announcement live.
When the winner was named, the room erupted.
“It’s one of those things you hope you can pull off, but when you actually hear you won, you can’t believe it,” volunteer Morgan Dufort told Cowboy State Daily.
One Truck, More Calls, Less Money
The team of about 60 volunteers covers more than 3,100 square miles and a county of about 12,000 people.
Officials say nearly 1 million visitors travel through the area each year, many into remote mountains, caves and swift water.
Last year volunteers answered 55 calls — nearly four times a historical average of about 15 and second in Wyoming only to Teton County.
This year they have already completed about 50 missions.
Schmidt said he was home four minutes after a trip last weekend when the phone rang again.
At the same time, county funding dropped from about $106,000 to $50,000 after property-tax cuts squeezed the budget.
Schmidt has said further tax reductions under debate in Cheyenne could tighten finances again.
The team has one primary truck that carries much of its specialized gear for rope, cave and swift-water rescues.
Volunteers have asked for another vehicle for about three years.
Schmidt has said the Defender seats eight, can tow a side-by-side trailer and would let rescuers put more teams on the mountain while keeping a backup truck in service.
“It’ll just go more places,” he said earlier.
Land Rover will customize the 2027 Defender 130, including the team’s logo, before delivery.
Schmidt said he expects it to become a primary response vehicle, with technical gear in the back and a rescue litter on a roof rack.
Dufort called it “a pretty rad ride.”
The $30,000 is nearly as important.
Schmidt previously said the team’s yearly budget “doesn’t begin to cover even our expenses for a year.”
A 17-Day Vote From A Small County
Finalists were chosen from videos. Public voting then ran 17 days.
Dufort and other volunteers built a reminder list that at one point reached more than 600 people a day.
Neighbors pushed it further: at the Old Shell Store in Shell, customers were offered a free cookie if they voted.
Support came from neighboring rescue teams, across Wyoming and from contacts in the outdoor industry.
At the awards ceremony, Schmidt said his phone “blew up” with texts from around the country.
Land Rover has not released vote totals.
Schmidt said the race with Friends of Custer County Search and Rescue of South Dakota “was really close.”
Custer County received $15,000 as runner-up. “These guys deserve it, too,” Schmidt said. “We both need it.”
He does not know when the Defender will arrive in Big Horn County.
Whenever it does, he said, it is unlikely to sit idle.
“A county of 12,000 people supporting a team of 60 volunteers and a million visitors a year — you realize how big that gap is,” Dufort said. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a little bit emotional.”
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
