07/10/2026
A great night for the celebration of Ross Cocker life membership to Land Search and Rescue.
A well earned achievement! Congratulations 🎊
Last weekend saw us celebrate long serving volunteer, Ross Cocker, who was awarded Land Search and Rescue’s highest honour of Life Membership.
15 members may hold this honour at any one time, and Ross is only the 12th member to be awarded it. The award recognises his 43 years of dedicated volunteer service and his contribution to search and rescue in Westport, across the region and nationally.
Ross began volunteering with Land Search and Rescue in Dunedin in 1983 before returning to Westport in 1992. During more than four decades of volunteering, he has been involved in hundreds of searches and several major emergency and disaster responses, including the Pike River Mine disaster in 2010, the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011 and Westport’s major flood in July 2021.
His contribution has extended well beyond individual searches. Ross has held leadership and incident management roles, helped strengthen search and rescue capability and shared his experience and knowledge with volunteers and search and rescue leaders around New Zealand.
About 90 family members, friends and search and rescue colleagues attended the ceremony at Club Buller to recognise the breadth and impact of his contribution, as well as his extraordinary length of service. Ross’s wife Pam was also acknowledged at Saturday’s ceremony for the support she has provided throughout his decades of volunteering, along with clocking up 30 years in her own right as a member of the Westport Group. It was a fantastic event and very well deserved recognition.
