Adams County resident Ricky Stevens wants to lend a hand if someone ever gets lost in the woods around the Miss-Lou. That’s why Stevens and a group of 17 local residents — including fire fighters, medical personnel and dog trainers — are forming a search and rescue team to help area counties and parishes locate missing people.

The team is a private organization which would &uot;just be another branch to help law enforcement out,&uot; said Stevens, who is the team president.

Stevens said the county has a need for this team because of the large number of people who hunt in Adams County. He thinks three to four people became lost in Adams County last year but those numbers could not be confirmed.

Adams County Sheriff Tommy Ferrell, said he does not think local agencies need this resource partly because such case are rare.

&uot;(We) don’t need a rescue team. We are the rescue team,&uot; Ferrell said. The sheriff’s department has a helicopter, a boat, pilots and staff trained in search and rescue, he said.

But the local group has talked about forming the team for several years and held their first meeting in June, said Don Winters, the team’s incident commander.

The Adams County team wants to start out with ground searches and maybe expand into other areas later, Winters said.

The team will receive free training from the DeSoto County Search and Rescue Training this weekend. &uot;We contacted (DeSoto County) because they had a well established search and rescue&uot; team, Stevens said.

Team members will learn how to do grid searches or to break up an area being searched into sections and learn basic land navigation, Stevens said.

T.H. Walker, commander of search and rescue and emergency management director for DeSoto County, said the class teaches participants the basics of doing a search. It focuses on wilderness or outdoor searches, Walker said.

To help the Adams County team conduct searches, Winters, who is a former EMT and also a dog trainer, is training Bosco, a nine-month-old German shepherd, how to track missing people.

Bosco is the grandson of Wando, who works for the Natchez Police Department. Winters said he is training Bosco for the team because &uot;you can locate a person much faster&uot; with a dog.

People often lose interest in learning search and rescue skills until a crisis takes place, Winters said. &uot;It’s like insurance,&uot; Winters said. &uot;You don’t need it ’til you need it.&uot;

Natchez Police Chief Willie Huff said he rarely has a need for a search and rescue team because officers call the fire department in rescue cases.

But Huff said he has no problem with the formation of the search team.

&uot;We don’t have much need for it in the city, but if we ever did it would be comforting to know we had some trained personnel to help us,&uot; Huff said.

And team members say they will be able to offer search and rescue skills law enforcement officers do not usually have.

Stevens, who is a former police officer and sheriff’s deputy, said many officers do not have actual search and rescue training, such as how to break down a search so an area can be searched thoroughly.

And having this type of team &uot;frees up your local law enforcement and fireman to do other things,&uot; Steven said.

Walker agreed that officers often do not always have that type of training even though ground searches are the sheriff’s department responsibility, he said.

&uot;They have the responsibility but they usually don’t have the training for it,&uot; he said. &uot;That’s not a mark against them. These guys are basically law enforcement officers.&uot;

But Walker said he would never get into a conflict with a sheriff or any agency over jurisdiction.

And members of the Adams County search and rescue team agree with this policy.

The team hopes to be able to operate in time for hunting season but it will only respond to a missing person report if an agency asks for help, Stevens said

Wilkinson County Civil Defense Director Eugene Martin, said he would make use of the Adams County team if it is needed.

&uot;We’ll use any volunteer service we can get,&uot; he said.

Wilkinson County has two to three missing person cases a year, Martin said said. The county uses volunteer fire fighters, deputies, and officials with the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to help in searches, he said.