Armstrong, Strinden present 2026 Governor’s Awards for Excellence in Public Service

Gov. Kelly Armstrong and Lt. Gov. Michelle Strinden today presented the 2026 Governor's Awards for Excellence in Public Service, celebrating teams across state government for their outstanding service to North Dakota citizens during the last year.

For the second year in a row, the awards recognized team efforts, both within individual agencies and among agencies inside and outside of state government. State employees submitted over 200 nominations.

"This year's awards recognize teams that solved complex challenges, responded quickly to changing conditions and positioned our state for long-term success through teamwork and innovation," Armstrong said. "We're proud of these and all our state employees whose dedication to serving the citizens of North Dakota shines through in their daily work and makes our state the best place to live, work and raise a family. Lt. Gov. Strinden and I are grateful for everyone who nominated their colleagues for their exceptional efforts, and we congratulate all the award recipients and nominees."

Armstrong and Strinden presented the awards during a ceremony in the Capitol's Memorial Hall.

Following are the award categories, descriptions and recipients:

Triple-Play Award: Recognizes a high-performing team that flawlessly executed a complex, multi-stage project with precision, speed and without errors.

• Recipient: Department of Transportation's Mobile Driver License Team, for its innovation and use of technology to successful deploy a mobile driver's license across all three major wallet platforms - Apple, Google, and Samsung - on the same day, making North Dakota the first state to do so.

Prairie Pheasant Flush Award: Honors a sharp, fast-moving team that spotted a challenge, coordinated their strike and delivered a timely solution before it became a crisis.

• Recipient: Department of Health and Human Services' Federal Government Shutdown Team, for quickly mobilizing and uniting state agencies, county partners and community organizations to ensure North Dakotans had clear, accurate and timely information during the unprecedented 43-day federal government shutdown in 2025.

Backbone Collaboration Award: Celebrates a resilient team that tackled the tough, behind-the-scenes work to strengthen North Dakota's infrastructure, energy or economy through grit and cross-agency collaboration.

• Recipient: North Dakota Department of Water Resources' Cost-Share and Governance & Finance Study Teams, for conducting a comprehensive study of how North Dakota could maximize limited resources, fund water projects in more communities and strengthen the state's water infrastructure for decades to come.

Strength from the Soil Award: Awards a team that advanced agriculture or natural resources innovation in North Dakota through cross-agency or cross-community involvement.

• Recipient: North Dakota Game and Fish Department's Private Lands Section, for its work to improve wildlife habitat, expand public hunting opportunities, support ranchers and farmers and protect the state's outdoor heritage, including through the Private Land Open to Sportsmen program, which is nearing its goal of 1 million acres enrolled.

Roaming Bison Award: Recognizes an exceptional team whose innovation, teamwork and citizen focus set the standard for public service in North Dakota.

• Recipient: Medora 250 and Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Coordination Team, for its planning and execution of the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and President Donald Trump's visit to Medora during the week of July 4^th as the country observed the America 250 celebration with North Dakota in the national spotlight.