ONE TORCHBEARER will be cheered on not just by onlookers, but by her students, who are just as excited as she is about her role in the Olympic torch relay.
Heidi Siebring, who teaches Grade 6 at Uplands School, says she was asked to be a torchbearer by Jim Casey, who works for the World Wildlife Fund office in Prince Rupert.
“He was in charge of organizing a team of people who are environmentally-minded and asked me because he knows that my class has participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup for a couple years now, and practice leadership in school by collecting bottles and paper in the school for recycling,” she said.
Siebring has mixed feelings about being a torchbearer as, while she loves to hear about athletes and watch how hard they work to achieve their goals, she wonders what could be accomplished in this country and the world to end poverty and work on a sustainable future if all the time, energy and money put into the Olympics was put into these issues instead.
“That being said, I am certainly proud to be a torchbearer and am going to enjoy the chance to carry it in Canada and Terrace,” she said.
“The training that I am doing? I walk to work and back every day and try not to slip on the ice – I figure that is the most that could go wrong while carrying the torch.”