Heather Spurlock

2002 Winter Olympics

I am an olympic junkie. I had a light schedule in school which accommodated watching as much as possible. Canada had a hard time not having enough snow, too much fog and cauldron fail. Olympics are staging their city and country to the world. It reminded me of 2002 when I was a volunteer. I was assigned to the opening and closing ceremonies. Just like Vancouver things did not go perfectly. After rehearsals of four months they opening ceremonies day came and we had the biggest snow storm ever and popped the hot air balloons that aerialist where going to be dangling and performing. Then we had to shovel snow from all the seats.

Volunteer for me was thrilling. The month before opening ceremonies we were assigned specific duties. I was assigned the flag raisers (anyone who touched flags, American, Greece and Olympic flags). I walked them to where ever they needed to go and made sure they were early to the post. It was crazy practicing with stand ins. I did not know who I would be working with until a few days ahead. I was sworn to secrecy. I loved going out on the floor during the ceremonies and taking pictures. I have super pictures of many famous people like Steven Spielberg, Jacques Rogue, Desmond Tutu, and Dorothy Hamill.

During this time is was my goal to have my family experience as much as possible of the olympics. We took buses to events, award ceremonies, anything we could get tickets to. Many times just having a camera at the right place at the right time was captured a special moment. Ty ran into Bode Miller at McDonalds. Jake, Ty and Nick went to see the Today Show in Park City and ran into Kelly Clark hours after winning her gold medal in the half pipe just walking down the street.

My crowning moment was when I was asked to be in the closing ceremonies to raise the Greece flag. I was shocked and readily accepted. It was a special olympic moment for me. I could not stop smiling on the podium. It was so cold but my spirit was hot. I will never live my dream of being an ice skater and winning gold but I was a winner just being apart of the great olympics in Salt Lake City. Go USA!

On our one year anniversary we had the head writer and choreographer, Kenny Ortega of the Olympics come back (he is also know for doing High School Musical, maybe you have heard of it or his other known event was the comeback tour of Michael Jackson). Kenny received a Emmy Award for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and brought it back to the reunion to share with us. Kenny said he could do it without us.

Live every moment and share with others. Life, live it!