It's an Olympic job for 2002's biggest fan

SALT LAKE CITY — Jean Beck breezes into the building with a trumpet fanfare, ready for anything that is tossed her way.

“Exactly how tall is that cauldron?” she is asked above the soaring brass music that plays again and again inside the information center at Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Cauldron Park.

" One hundred-and-seventy-feet high with a flame that can reach 24 feet,” Jean says without hesitation.

“How much does it cost to light it?”

“About $5,000 a day,” says Jean. “It sure isn’t cheap.”

“Will they be lighting it again soon?”

The petite Olympic docent smiles. If she had her way, the cauldron outside Rice-Eccles Stadium would blaze 24/7, allowing everyone to stop by and experience the “good vibes” that enveloped Salt Lake City in 2002.

“It was a special time,” she says with a hint of melancholy. “When they relight the flame (on Feb. 8), you can bet I won’t miss it. In 10 years, I haven’t found anything as inspiring as being here for opening ceremonies in 2002.”

During Utah’s Winter Olympic Games, Jean, an avid skier who had recently retired from her job in the mortgage business, volunteered as an on-hill security guard at Deer Valley’s aerial, mogul and slalom events. She thought that after 17 days of fun, she’d go back to the quiet life.

But when the venues emptied out, banners were taken down and all the athletes and tourists went home, she felt a bit of a let-down. To paraphrase the Olympic theme she’d heard so many times on the ski hill, something needed to “light the fire within.”

Several months later, when she was asked to become a docent at Salt Lake City’s new Cauldron Park, “I didn’t even need to think about it,” she says. “Being with the athletes and their families was something I’ll never forget. This was a way to relive the memories any time I felt like it.”

To share some of those memories, Jean recently invited me to join her for a Free Lunch chat at the park’s information center, where she spends her lunch hour running up and down the stairs at Rice-Eccles Stadium when she can take a break from answering tourists’ questions.