By Kathryn Roethel

One day, 8-year-old Taylor was sitting on the floor in her bedroom, reading books about dinosaurs that lived 75 million years ago. A few days later, she was sitting in the dirt in the badlands of Montana helping paleontologists uncover the remains of a turtle that walked the earth in the days of those dinosaurs. This historic discovery began when Taylor made a wish.

Taylor was born with one kidney and received a kidney transplant from her mom. When she met with volunteer wish granters from the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of New Hampshire, she told them that her wish was to dig for dinosaurs.

The Foundation contacted Mark Goodwin and Jack Horner, both leading paleontology experts, and they readily agreed to take Taylor on a dig. They feared she might be bored, but Taylor quickly put those concerns to rest. According to Elizabeth Schulte, director of wish granting for the New Hampshire chapter, being on an archeological site was “natural to Taylor.”

As soon as Taylor and her family arrived in Montana, she was ready to dig into her wish. The first stop was the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, where Mark Goodwin helped Taylor brush up on her knowledge of dinosaur fossils and the remains of other prehistoric beasts.

Next she was off on a 300-mile trip north to Redding Farm, a prime fossil site near the Hi-Line community of Rudyard that is usually only open to scientists. The owners made a special exception for Taylor’s wish, considering her a paleontologist-in-training.

Redding Farm has a reputation for unearthing history, but Taylor was about to make some history of her own. On the second day of her dig, using the careful techniques she learned from the experts, Taylor uncovered what she first thought was a rock.

“Then when we dug it up, it looked like a turtle shell,” she said.

It was indeed a turtle shell – from a turtle that lived 75 millions years ago, and it is one of the largest turtle shell specimens found at the site.

“I wanted to bring it home, but I couldn’t because it was really delicate, so they put it in the museum instead,” Taylor told an Associated Press reporter.

Taylor’s wish was filled with other adventures. She slept in a teepee on the farm, saw a cattle drive and rode on an ATV. She also made a visit to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming and an Indian reservation.

And when it was time to say goodbye to her new friends at the Museum of the Rockies and Redding Farm, she received an open invitation to visit anytime she likes.

Now, when Taylor thinks back on the great memories of her trip, her smile rivals that of even the toothiest T-rex. Hers was truly a wish that made history.