When Sarah Johnson saw the effects of the 9/11 attacks on our country, she knew that action needed to be taken. Still in high school at the time, she anxiously awaited the day she could enlist to serve her country. 

That day came in 2006 when she joined the Marine Corps. As an avid runner, Johnson was up for the challenge the Marines would bring. Earning an almost perfect Physical Fitness Test (PFT) score of 295, she proved early on what she was capable of. 

Then, entering Iraq in 2007, she became the only Marine to complete the 100-mile run for her sergeant. That accomplishment, along with being a boxer, led Sarah’s sergeant to sign her up for the Lioness program. 

“I had no idea what the Lioness was,” Johnson said. “I actually thought it was silly.” 

Soon, though, Johnson would learn why being selected for the Lioness was a great honor. 

Her experience in Iraq would become one of the defining chapters of Johnson’s life, which led her, eventually, to the Big Horn Basin, where she now operates a small business in Powell centered around purebred giant rabbits. 

Life as a Lioness

The Lioness was the very first United States organization that put females in direct combat. The soldiers were used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to perform searches of and get information from Iraqi women. 

Johnson served three deployments in Iraq and was looking to serve for longer as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Technician. But ultimately, her time in Iraq needed to come to an end because of the trauma she suffered. 

“I decided to get out and start my education,” Johnson said. “I went as a chemical engineer… I had difficulty reading, and I started developing strong stutters … then they found out that I did have a TBI, which is a brain injury.” 

Johnson was unable to finish her college degree after receiving that news. Devastated, Johnson knew she still needed to find something to bring her back to life. That’s when she decided to leave the life she knew in Missouri for Cody in 2016. 

“Cody has this calmness and this surreal independence… and I loved it,” Johnson said. “It was exactly what I needed to rebuild.”

With the move to Cody came a new job for Johnson: wildland firefighting. Johnson found a love for the mountains, fighting fires throughout the Rockies. It was there that she found the ultimate calmness she had been searching for and a kind of therapy that so many Wyomingites enjoy in the outdoors. 

‘Rabbits became my therapy’

That search for calm eventually led Johnson to something unexpected: rabbits. 

“The rabbits became my therapy, like an emotional support animal,” Johnson said. “The dog wants energy … but the rabbit is on the opposite spectrum of being calm. It’s a prey animal.”

Rabbits have been a major component in her rebuilding and finding the calm lifestyle she lacked while serving in the Marines. Her interests don’t stop there, though. Johnson also found a love for ultra running as she searched for calm. 

When Johnson became a mother, she realized she needed to do something for herself; her daughter Claire had become her whole life. That was when she decided to take running, something she loved, more seriously. Johnson began training for races, beginning with half-marathons and eventually building all the way up to 50-mile races. 

The running didn’t put her love for rabbits aside. That was when Johnson decided to start Heart Hopper Giants, a mobile bunny-party business that rents the bunnies for an appearance at an event. But that isn’t Heart Hopper Giants’ final goal. She is ultimately aiming to breed purebred Flemish Giants and French Lops. 

“It was difficult to find purebred anything around here,” Johnson said. “You could say purebred, but they weren’t actually true to the standards … I wanted to change that.” 

Going from Marine to wildland firefighter to bunny breeder isn’t a path Johnson expected to take, but it was the path that led her to find the life she needed. Now Johnson hopes that through Heart Hopper Giants she can better connect with the community and bring a unique service.