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American Morning
Heber City Enjoys Slice of Olympic Fame
Aired February 19, 2002 - 09:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to revisit the Olympics now, sort of. We have been telling you at great length and fairly often about all the big news from the Winter Games including this new recipe for judging the figure skating events. Tonight's competition for the gold, silver, and bronze medals in women's figure skating, Michelle Kwan going for the gold.
But as Carol Lin tells us now, the Olympics have brought some surprising benefits to people who are neither athletes nor spectators.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It costs money to host an international event, but would tax payers think about footing Bob Middlemoss' (ph) Olympic job?
BOB MIDDLEMOSS (ph): I'm taking care of state park buffalo.
LIN (on camera): You're taking care of the state park buffalo?
MIDDLEMOSS: Yeah.
LIN: Wh -- those guys.
(voice-over): Utah's park service got the Olympic request to display buffalo at different venues. For a journalist looking for Olympic pork barrel, the story was getting good. But our road was about to take an unexpected turn.
(on camera): We were told in the town next to the buffalo, there was one big Olympic boondoggle. This stretch of Highway 40 that was widened at tax payers' expense with some of the $800 million for Olympic transportation. This is the highway to Heber City.
(voice-over): Heber, population 7,200, a small ranching town on the brink of decline, had nothing to to with the Olympics.
LYNN ADAMS, MAYOR, HEBER CITY, UTAH: Well, this is a town that the biggest thing was the wrestling team, and here comes all these improvements that people have wanted for years.
LIN: In fact, it was an Olympic mistake that Heber's highway got widened at all. The original plan was to widen a road near the cross- country venue, but the site was too narrow. So, Olympic planners scrambled miles away to shuttle spectators through Heber instead. Suddenly a tiny town had big decisions to make.
(on camera): What was at stake here, then, for Heber?
ADAMS: Our identity. Are we going to stay the city that had the rundown Main Street, and the people were not proud of, or are we come up and show people who we really are?
LIN (voice-over): Heber City decided it would put on an Olympic show. The new highway sparked an avalanche of unexpected civic pride. A third of the town volunteered to fix up Main Street, which had been crumbling for more than 100 years.
ADAMS: They just came out of the woodwork and said, we'll do this, we'll do the tile, we'll do the stone work, we'll do the painting, we'll do the siding.
LIN: This blue collar town raised $100,000 to fix up the historic railroad, and routed trains to take Olympic spectators to the games.
JEANIE RASMUSSEN, RESIDENT, HEBER CITY: We could go the whole rest of our lives, and no one ever heard of Heber City, but with the Olympics, it has brought the world to our door.
LIN: The world not only came to visit, people actually moved in.
ADAMS: It's completely changed the character of the community. On my street, there's a Palestinian, a Fin, Mexicans, and four other regular American families.
LIN: And as news spread of Heber's philanthropy, outside donors came with $10 million dollars to build a new college at the edge of town. The new highway we thought was a boondoggle paved the way for high expectations, even hopes that Heber City didn't know it had.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: So consider this: Salt Lake City expects to get more than $3 billion in new business contracts, Jack, and Heber City plans to now get a piece of that pie.
CAFFERTY: How is the night life in Heber City? Did you check it out while you were over there?
LIN: I think you saw a slice of it. The wild, wild west show was a big hit, and a fund-raiser for the town. They were selling these cowboy hats with the Salt Lake 2002 banner, and it was completely sold out. So, there you go. Now you now how I am spending my time.
CAFFERTY: Do they ever give you any time off? I mean, I see your reports on day and night on CNN. It is like you are the Olympic coverage for this network.
How many hours a day they working you out there? LIN: It's me and a crew, and a very dedicated producer, and we're cracking it about 20 hours a day. We want to shoot the pieces because we want to show you a slice of life here.
CAFFERTY: That's terrific.
LIN: And all these sort of ripple effects of the Olympics.
CAFFERTY: But it sets a very bad precedent for the rest of us who don't like to work hard. You know, they are going to say, well, Carol Lin is out there working 20 hours a day. The rest of you should do more, and Anderson and I are very uncomfortable with that concept.
LIN: You know, I want to apologize to you and I promise to do less in the days to come, okay?
CAFFERTY: I'm just teasing you. Your stuff has been terrific. I've learned more about the Olympics watching you than I have on NBC. Thanks.
LIN: Thanks, sweetie (ph).
CAFFERTY: Talk to you later. She's pretty cool, I like her.
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