Utah law requires local sheriffs to coordinate search and rescue (SAR) programs but they aren’t funded in the state budget.
The Summit County Sheriff’s Office puts about $45,000 a year toward SAR, according to Friends of Summit County Search and Rescue Board Chair Bret Mickelson.
“The two busiest months are January—so, winter rescues—and then the hikers in August,” Mickelson said on KPCW’s Local News Hour. “These aren't nicely spread out throughout the year making it easy.”
Friends of Summit County Search and Rescue raises money for the volunteer SAR force.
“[The volunteers] are getting trained through these resources, but sometimes they're going out in clothes of their own and having to get pulled out of really dangerous situations sooner than they might, would they have had the equipment that they need,” Scott Wolf, a Tony Award-winning actor who’ll emcee the concert, said. “Or bunching up together because they've only got X amount of radios. So we're talking about raising funds for basic needs. This isn't extravagance.”
The benefit concert to raise those funds is at High Star Ranch’s Dejoria Center in Kamas.
Oakley-based country artist Josh Kelley will play with his friend, Grammy winner Dustin Christensen. They’ve also tapped Wolf to sing a number.
It will be a Nashville-style “writers in the round” show.
“In Nashville—it started with a Bluebird Cafe—they do this thing where they take writers who write all the big hits in Nashville. They put like three of them together, and these writers get to tell the stories about how the songs were created, that are some people's favorite songs,” Kelley explained.
The performers will tell those stories about the songs they’ve written too.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 4. Proceeds benefit search and rescue in Summit County.
