Carrying the Flame: Three Portraits of LDS Torchbearers
by Melanie Bridge
Assistant Editor, Meridian Magazine

Meredith Majakey running the torch.

"Light the Fire Within" is the motto for the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and a metaphor for Olympians' passion for competition and victory. The 11,500 torchbearers who have their moment with the flame also embody that same spirit, an inner fire that has driven them to overcome or succeed.

Susan Bandy, who headed up the Houston task force that chose the torchbearers for the Salt Lake Olympic Committe said in a news release, "At some time you just had to quit crying, it's been incredible dealing with all the stories."

The following are a sampling of some of the stories of those chosen for their inspiration and advancement of the Olympic ideals.

Jami Palmer competing in the Miss Utah competition of 2000
with Ashlee Shaw the second runner up.

Jami Palmer
Jami's story is truly one of going the extra mile. Her first mile began when she was 12 and was diagnosed with bone cancer. She went through chemotherapy, surgery, "the whole nine yards," to get to where she is today. Now, totally in remission, Jami is a broadcast journalism major at Brigham Young University and a former Miss Utah. During her time as Miss Utah she was a Miss America finalist for the Quality of Life award and named a Bert Parks non-finalist for talent because of her classical piano rendition of Grieg's "Concerto in A Minor."

Going through a prolonged illness changes your outlook on life to be less superficial, Jami said. Cancer didn't devastate her life, but changed it for the better.

Rhea Kiesel, president of the Miss Utah organization, said of the former Miss Utah 2000-2001, "she is a second miler, we couldn't get her working hard enough to suit Jamie."

The second mile is what gets Jami excited about her role as a torchbearer. She was nominated for her work with Make a Wish, American Cancer Society, Cancer Wellness House and Primary Children's Hospital.

Her message to all the children she comes in contact with is: "people do survive cancer, it is something you can beat and there are people who can help you through it."

Jami's goal is just that, to help children get through cancer by making them feel like normal children. One of her most memorable experiences happened with a 5-year-old boy named Brayden who also suffered from bone cancer in his arm. One day she brought him a big, green stuffed tiger that was easily taller than he was.

Jami Palmer with Courtney who has Lukemia at South Jordan Elementary.

"I remember walking into the room and here was this tiny little boy hooked up to the IV's. I put the tiger next to him and he began to smile," Palmer said.

His Mom said it was the first time he had smiled since he was diagnosed, and to Palmer, that's what her work is: bringing smiles for children.

Jami's work isn't all about smiles however. She told Rhea Kiesel, you can't imagine what it's like to watch someone die and want to tell them everything will be Ok and "all I can do is hold their hand and cry."

Maybe that's what they need though, Rhea said, is someone to just be with them when they need it.

For as long as she can remember Jami has always wanted to go to the Olympics, to define or find a talent that could get her there. Her time as a torchbearer will highlight the talent that got her there for her 2/10 of a mile run.

Four different groups, three Miss Utah pageant directors and the Salt Lake County Sheriff's department, through the Chevrolet nominating process, nominated Palmer to run the torch.

On September 11, Salt Lake Olympic Committee president Mitt Romney was supposed to be in New York City to announce all of the people selected to bear the Olympic torch. Because of the devastating events, a separate press conference was held in Salt Lake City with all the torchbearers that wanted to come. Several of them were selected to have their stories highlighted, including many from New York City and Jami. Chevrolet has also chosen her as one of their featured torchbearers on their Web site.

Jami wasn't sure where or when she would run the torch, but she said, "honestly it doesn't matter where I run it, it's just an honor to run it."

Meredith Majakey posing with her torch.

Meredith Majakey and Steve Sleight
I don't think that Meredith gets a lot of credit for all the good things that she does; and the Olympic spirit to me, is about championing the unsung heroes, the people behind the scenes that don't get all the glory, but that work hard, are nice to people and are just generally great people, Steve Sleight. That's why he nominated Meredith Majakey.

The torch she carried for her brief moment of Olympic glory will be a memento Meredith will keep forever, but her torch won't be the only one on the mantle for her kids to ask questions about. Next to it will be the torch that her fiancée, Steve Sleight will carry on Feb. 5 in Provo, Utah.

Just before nominations for torchbearers were opened, Steve read an article in the newspaper about how one could nominate a "hero" to run the torch. After checking the Coca-Cola and Chevrolet Web sites several times he finally nominated Meredith on both sites.

"The Olympic representative told me that they had gotten such wonderful letters from so many nominators that to make the story complete the nominee and the nominator needed to run together," Meredith said.

The Salt Lake Olympic Committee decided that Steve's unselfish nomination of Meredith, who is a real hero to him, was one of those stories that would only be complete if he was also chosen to run the torch.

"I knew that Meredith had a hang up that she thought she had never accomplished anything spectacular in her life, and so I wanted her to have something spectacular," Steve said of her nomination.

Steve and Meredith are from different states so he was selected to run in one of the spots that the Salt Lake Olympic Committee had open in Utah. That means he will hold the same flame that she held after it has passed through thousands of hands.

Long distances between each other is nothing new to the couple who met in an AOL Mormon Chat room and later honed their relationship through letters while he was on his mission in Brazil, Salvador.

Meredith Majakey lighting the cauldron
at the end of her torch run in Huntington, West Virginia.

Meredith, who is from Prestonsburg, Ky., ran the torch on Dec. 18 in downtown Huntington, W.Va. She was the last runner before the torch was loaded on a truck to be transported to the next city. Before the day began Meredith said all the torchbearers met together and introduced themselves.

"I felt totally undeserving to be there," she said. "I've never had cancer, I'm very average I would say. I felt very humbled, but very excited."

The residents of the neighborhood where Meredith ran lined the streets outside their homes to cheer, "USA, we're No. 1." She said her Dad tried to run along beside her with a video camera, but she was so excited and happy that she left him behind. During her run, Meredith literally stopped traffic on a four-lane road. The cars were honking at her, but it wasn't in anger, it was part of their pride to be Americans, she said.

"I don't think that there's anything particular that makes us any more spectacular than anyone else, the challenges that we may have faced haven't been nearly as great as some of the people I've read about on the Internet. I just stand there in awe of the challenges they've face and so I feel very blessed and very honored to be able to represent our families and our country and the people around us," Steve said.

Verity Wright
On Feb. 5 Verity Wright will run the Olympic flame in Manti, Utah. The slight, hardly noticeable limp she runs with is the only clue to the ordeal she overcame to make it there.

In January of her 15^th year the Wright family decided to take a scuba diving trip to Cozumel, Mexico. "I'm told we had a great time," Verity Wright said.

She wouldn't know because her memory of the event was erased by a car that sent her body flying through the air and onto the pavement in a crumpled heap.

Although she has no recollection of the incident, Verity said she has been told of the ordeal she went through. Cozumel only had one clinic, so her father began frantically calling all the U.S. coastal hospitals with the hope that someone would take her. Most hospitals said there was no point; she'd be dead before she reached the U.S., but Miami Children's hospital accepted if her parents could find a way to get her there.

An air ambulance from Coral Gables, Florida. came to pick her up, but the authorities were holding her swiftly dying body as ransom until the taxes were paid. The pilot threw them his wallet, said this will have to do or she'll die, and they flew off.

Because Verity is from Woodland Hills, Utah, her family found dealing with a daughter in a coma in Florida a logistical problem. The ward near the hospital came to the rescue by adopting her cause, Verity said. The ward mission leader was especially good, coming to sing, read and talk to her, because he felt someone was in there.

Proving that every cloud does have its silver lining, while Verity Wright, was in her coma a nurse asked her mother about what church they belonged to that loves its members so much. The nurse agreed to take the missionary discussions and eventually was baptized and married the ward mission leader, whom she met at Verity's bedside.

After two months in the coma, Verity began to wake up, by the end of the summer she had endured almost every type of therapy possible and felt ready to return to school.

When her therapists told her going back to school would only lead her to commit suicide in despair, she responded, "I want to go back, I don't want to be a dummy."

Now, graduating in April with a degree in English from BYU and after a mission to Michigan, Lansing, Verity has proven that she is very capable of overcoming whatever life throws at her. Whether she has to draw maps to remember where she sits in class or use her surroundings as clues to discover where she is occasionally when she wakes up in the morning, Verity has discovered who she is all over again.

She thought her nomination to be a torchbearer was a joke, like a magazine contest or something, but Verity's mom quickly assured her that it was for real.

"She truly is the biggest hero in our lives, and she is the most courageous person I know," Sharon Wright, Verity's mother said.

ThoughVerity doesn't like to talk a lot about herself, she said that she's very honored to be a torchbearer because she knows it's one of the chances of a lifetime.

Her mother was more effusive in her praise. "We nominated her for her spirit, her faith and her unwillingness to accept mediocrity."

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