Wanna Ride Foundation Scholarship Fund
Wanna Ride Scholarship
We help Wyoming-connected students pay for whatever comes after high school — university, community college, trade school, an apprenticeship, or the certification exam standing between you and your license.
Applications open December 1, 2026 and close March 1, 2027. Mark the date — and start lining up your recommendation letters now.
Read this part twice
You do not have to live in Wyoming. You do not have to go to school in Wyoming.
What matters is that Wyoming is genuinely part of your story. Maybe you grew up here. Maybe you grew up a state away and spent every weekend and school break you could in these mountains. Maybe your family has ranched here for four generations, or maybe you found this place at sixteen and never got over it.
All of that counts, and every one of those applicants is read on the same footing.
Any path counts too. A four-year university, community college, trade or vocational school, an apprenticeship, online coursework, or studying on your own for a journeyman or certification exam — we don't rank those against each other. Seniors, graduates, and students already partway through a program can all apply, and so can anyone who applied before and wasn't selected. We like seeing people come back.
What we're actually looking for
Not a perfect GPA, and not a list of volunteer hours as long as your arm. We ask for a transcript, but nobody has ever won or lost this on a grade point average — and if you took the GED route or studied independently, that's not a strike against you either.
What we read closely is your own account of yourself: a challenge you've actually navigated, what you intend to do with the training, and a real reason Wyoming matters to you. We can tell when someone is writing what they think we want to hear, and it's never as good as the truth.
Scholarship funds go toward the real costs of your program — tuition, fees, books, tools, equipment, exam fees. If you're self-studying for a certification and there's no school to invoice, we'll work it out with you.
Coming to the ride
Scholarships are handed out in person at the Wanna Ride Memorial Ride & Scavenger Hunt, on the fourth Saturday of August in the Snowy Range above Laramie. It's how recipients meet the people whose fundraising paid for the award, and it's genuinely the best day of our year.
We'd love you there and we hope you can make it — but it is not a condition of receiving a scholarship. If distance, work, or family makes it impossible, tell us and we'll sort something out. Nobody should skip applying over this.
And you don't have to ride. Showing up is plenty.
How it goes
- Dec 1, 2026Applications open. The form takes a while — it asks real questions — so give yourself an evening rather than a lunch break.
- Mar 1, 2027Applications close at the end of the day. Late applications aren't considered, so don't leave the recommendation letters until the last week.
- By Apr 1Everyone hears back, selected or not. No one is left wondering.
- August 2027Recipients are celebrated at the Memorial Ride in the Snowy Range.
Before you start
You'll need two letters of recommendation from adults outside your family — a teacher, employer, supervisor, coach, pastor, or community leader all work, and for trade applicants so does a foreman or journeyman. Ask early; people need more notice than you think.
You'll also need some record of your schooling and some evidence of where you're headed — an acceptance letter, an enrollment confirmation, an exam registration, an employer's apprenticeship letter. If none of those exist yet, a written statement of your plan and timeline is fine. There's an accepted alternative for every one of these, listed right on the form.
Stuck on any of it? Call Patty. She'd much rather get the call than have you give up.
Applications open December 1, 2026
The application will live right here. Until then, get your recommendation letters lined up.
Questions in the meantime? (307) 343-0550 • patty@wannaridefoundation.com
Patty Leatherwood
Founder & Director
Wanna Ride Foundation
Get in touch
Don't let anyone tell you your dreams are too big or too small. The best adventures usually start somewhere nobody expected.
We Ride • We Share • We Care
2026 · The Wanna Ride Scholarship
Meet the 2026 Ride Scholars
Three Wyoming students. Three paths forward. One community behind them.
Every dollar raised at the Annual Memorial Ride & Scavenger Hunt goes toward students like these — Wyoming kids with big dreams, real determination, and the grit to make it happen. The riders paid for this. They got to hand it over themselves.
Kyler Montez
University of Wyoming
Accounting
Casper, Wyoming
The kid who shows up
Kyler Montez is the kind of person who doesn't just talk about hard work — he demonstrates it every single day. A Natrona County High School graduate with a 3.78 GPA, Kyler tackled Calculus, AP courses and dual enrollment at LCCC while working and finding time to mentor younger athletes as a hockey goalie coach.
He shows up — for his team, his classmates, and his community — without ever being asked.
What makes Kyler stand out isn't just his resume. It's the quiet stuff. His art teacher noted that he donates his pottery to the local soup kitchen. His mentors describe a young man who helps classmates without being prompted. He didn't stumble into accounting — he took the class, loved it, and never looked back. That's how you want someone to choose their future.
Kyler landed on four of five committee ballots and earned the top spot fair and square. Our riders loved him.
Jace McGregor
University of Wyoming
Pre-Medicine / Optometry
Gillette, Wyoming
Wyoming through and through
If you want to understand Jace McGregor, picture a Gillette kid who spends his free time dirt biking, fishing, hunting and backpacking in the mountains. That's not manufactured — that's just Tuesday in Campbell County. Jace is about as Wyoming as it gets, and his connection to the outdoors isn't just a hobby. It's woven into who he is and why he wants to help people.
When he tells the crowd at our event why he wants to become a doctor, they're going to feel it.
With a 3.851 Hathaway GPA and a transcript that balances Calculus and Human Anatomy with Welding III and Auto Technology, Jace is building his mind and his hands at the same time. He was promoted to team lead at his lawn care job as a teenager, earned a two-time “Mr. Hustle” award from his soccer coach, and worked ranch operations on the side.
Jace carried the highest financial need of any applicant in this year's pool. This scholarship means he spends less time worrying about how to pay for school — and more time becoming the kind of Wyoming doctor this state needs.
Elijah Fletcher
University of Wyoming
Agriculture / Animal Science
Wyoming ranching roots
The comeback story
Elijah Fletcher's path to UW is not a straight line — and that's exactly what makes it worth telling. There was a time when college wasn't part of his plan. Then he found meat judging. Then he found a mentor who saw something in him. Then he earned an associate's degree at Clarendon College in Texas, turned down an offer from Texas Tech, and came home to Wyoming.
He didn't stumble into agriculture — he came back to it. That's a different kind of commitment.
Elijah's recommender McKensie Phillips at UW writes about him with rare specificity — this isn't boilerplate praise, it's the testimony of someone who watched a young man rebuild his sense of direction from the ground up. His Wyoming ranching heritage isn't just background; it's the reason he chose to come back and invest in this state's agricultural future.
Elijah received votes from three of five committee members. His story is the kind that sticks with you — and the kind that fits the Wanna Ride spirit perfectly.
All three were there on the day
Kyler, Jace and Elijah came to the Memorial Ride on August 15, 2026 and were handed their checks in front of the people whose riding and bidding paid for them. That is the whole point of doing it this way — not a letter in the post, but a field full of people who show up, and three students standing in front of them.
Applications for the next Wanna Ride Scholarship open December 1, 2026.
We Ride · We Share · We Care