When Jolynn Flanders was a little girl, she and her sister dreamed of Olympic glory. They made paper torches and ran around their yard holding them high over their heads.
Friday afternoon the Roy woman realized her dream of holding one of the most recognized Olympic symbols, thanks to a Russian immigrant, who ran the torch relay this winter.
"I'm going to cry," she said as she held the torch for her family to see. Then she turned to the man who owned it and thanked him again and again. "What a gift! What a generous person you are!"
Then she handed the torch back to Vladimir Prikupets, who was already offering to let a little boy hold it. As his grandmother struggled to find her camera, she said he'd waited to catch a glimpse of the torch in the relay, but was unable to see it because of the crowds.
The little boy smiled and stared at the silvery torch. A few minutes later, another family was holding it, taking pictures and thanking the man who allowed them the honor.
This is the way Prikupets has spent his days and nights in Salt Lake City. He wanders the streets allowing anyone and everyone to hold, admire and even photograph the torch he carried in his hometown of San Francisco in January.
A writer for a Russian-language newspaper in San Francisco, he'd always planned on attending the Salt Lake Games.
But it wasn't until he took the torch to his granddaughter's school and told the children the story of the Olympic flame that he chose to share his special moment with as many people as he could.
"Every child wanted to touch it," he said. "So then I decided it would be very good idea to bring to Salt Lake City where there is real Olympic fervor. . . . I want the children to see it, to hold it."
Prikupets is like many people watching the 2002 Winter Games, trying to capture a little of the Olympic spirit.
After he immigrated to the United States in 1975 at age 43, he began attending the Olympics. The first Games he attended was the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y.
He paid $3,000 to carry the torch in the Los Angeles Summer Games relay in 1984 and has been to every Olympics — summer and winter — since.
Prikupets contacted the Salt Lake Organizing Committee about carrying the torch so children in his Russian-Jewish community, including his granddaughter, could see a first-generation immigrant carry it.
"It's very nice," he said of running the relay. "But it's so enjoyable to see the kids enjoy it. They smile — they're excited. I think maybe it will make me younger."
The 69-year-old retired civil engineer doesn't have any reservations about handing his torch to little children and complete strangers. His family, however, wonders about his decision.
"My wife, she said I'm crazy," he smiles. "I agree with her a little. But it just makes me so happy."
And countless people along his route can say the same after meeting him. "You should charge $1, and you'd be rich," said Jolene Rausch as she and her children posed for a picture with him and the torch.
Prikupets put his arm around her and said, "I am rich if you are happy." As she handed him the torch, she thanked him again.
"You made our whole day," she said.
Prikupets didn't answer. He was already handing it to another smiling woman, talking to another curious child.
E-MAIL: adonaldson@desnews.com