LOGAN – News broke at about 4:20 a.m. Wednesday morning, making it official that Salt Lake City had been awarded the 2034 Winter Olympics.
On KVNU’s For the People program on Thursday, outgoing state Representative Dan Johnson, R-District 3, said every county in the state benefited from the games back in 2002.
“Well it did. I don’t know if people remember it or not, there were two things that really stood out to me in 2002 that impacted us here.
“One was the number of kids that we organized for trips to go down and be able to participate in an event, actually see it in person. That was pretty remarkable,” said Johnson.
And, Johnson said, certain students were able to be there for the opening ceremonies at Rice Eccles Stadium, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those kids.
He said that educational experience will once again be available with the 2034 games. Also, a lot of young and old alike will be able to volunteer.
“It is just a great opportunity for people to get engaged with people from all over the world who come here to our state. We’ll have a lot of people from Cache Valley that will get to, who want to, go down and be a volunteer for some event or some activity that’s going on.
“So, they get some real first-hand engagement with it, and I think those two things are really important.”
Meanwhile, the Opening Ceremonies for the Paris Summer Olympics happen on Friday.