- Champion Schools launched at a Salt Lake City elementary school, and the committee's published ceremony schedule put five of its seven stops outside the Salt Lake valley. The committee has not published the list of participating schools, which makes the program's actual reach impossible to measure.
- This story sits inside Utah's olympic sports lane and connects to the larger statewide sports picture.
- The story is backed by 4 sources and a visible last-verified date.
September 20, 2026
September 20, 2026
5 min / 1,195 words
4 official links
On the morning of September 1, two Olympic bobsledders and a Paralympic snowboarder walked into Backman Elementary School in Salt Lake City to launch a program whose stated payoff is seven and a half years away.
Hunter Powell, Kaysha Love and Joe Pleban were there for the first of seven "Opening Ceremonies" marking the start of Utah 2034 Champion Schools, an education program run by the organizing committee for the 2034 Winter Games together with Ken Garff for Good. Utah 2034 said the inaugural pilot would launch this fall in 72 elementary schools across seven Utah school districts.
"The ability to launch champion schools seven and a half years before our opening ceremonies is an amazing opportunity for our organizing committee and for the state of Utah," Brad Wilson, the chief executive of Utah 2034, said, as quoted by KSL.
Backman's principal, Matthew Teitter, put it to the students in plainer terms. "Champion Schools is about reading. It's about learning. It's about being a good friend. It's about showing up. It's about trying your best. It's about finding out what it means to be a champion."
Seven ceremonies, one for each district
The organizing committee published the full ceremony schedule, and it covers more of the state than a Salt Lake valley launch with satellite stops would.
- September 1, 9 a.m. — Backman Elementary, Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City School District)
- September 2, 2 p.m. — Granger Elementary, West Valley City (Granite)
- September 4, 10 a.m. — Nibley Elementary, Nibley (Cache County)
- September 9, 2 p.m. — Maeser Elementary, Vernal (Uintah County)
- September 10, 9 a.m. — Centennial Elementary, Roosevelt (Duchesne County)
- September 15, 1:30 p.m. — Three Peaks Elementary, Cedar City (Iron County)
- September 16, 10 a.m. — Fairview Elementary, Mt. Pleasant (North Sanpete)
Two of those seven schools sit in the Salt Lake valley. The other five are spread across Cache Valley in the north, the Uinta Basin in the east, Iron County in the southwest and Sanpete County in central Utah. For a program run by an Olympic organizing committee headquartered in Salt Lake City, that distribution matches the word "statewide" the release itself uses.
Utah 2034 said the ceremonies would include activities such as torch relays, parades of classrooms and assemblies with Olympians and Paralympians. The Backman event, the one the Deseret News and KSL covered, followed that pattern: a torch relay, a parade of classrooms and an assembly with Olympians and Paralympians.
What the program actually puts in a classroom
Champion Schools is built on the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Values Education Programme, which Utah 2034 says has been implemented in 138 countries and has reached more than 60 million young people.
The Utah version hands teachers lesson plans, book recommendations, motivational videos featuring Olympians and Paralympians, a monthly values theme, and reading-minute tracking that students can convert into prizes. Ken Garff for Good, the Garff family foundation whose president is Erin Trenbeath-Murray, is developing the program's digital platform. The organizing committee's stated goals are strengthening literacy, increasing school engagement, and inspiring longer-term academic participation.
Reading is the spine of it, and the people running it say so directly.
"Reading is so important, and it's a big part of this program that we're starting with the Olympics," said Amy Garff, who chairs the Utah 2034 Education Committee.
The athletes in the room stayed on the same message. "Reading is important because it teaches you things you wouldn't have known before," Pleban, a Paralympic snowboarder, told the Backman students. Love, an Olympic bobsledder, told them she had not arrived at the sport through ambition. "I remember when I was their age, like, I didn't really have a dream of becoming an Olympian, right? I just had this desire to want to get out with my friends."
Wilson was blunter about the long game. "And maybe — just maybe — some of you can become Olympic athletes," he told the assembly.
Two things Utah 2034 has not said
The first is which schools are in it.
The organizing committee's own announcement gives the number — 72 — and the seven districts, but does not name the participating schools. Neither the Deseret News nor KSL published the list in their launch coverage. Seven schools are publicly identifiable, and only because each was named as a ceremony host.
The second is how the districts were chosen. No published account from Utah 2034, the Deseret News or KSL explains the selection, and the committee has not stated whether the seven were picked for geographic spread, for district willingness, for literacy need, or for some combination.
Those two gaps compound. Without the school list, there is no way to know what share of each district takes part — whether Granite, one of the districts covering the western Salt Lake valley, contributes twenty schools or two, and whether North Sanpete's participation is most of the district or a single building. The reach of a program described as statewide is, at the moment, a number without a denominator.
The practical version of the problem belongs to parents. Outside the seven ceremony hosts, a family who read about Champion Schools in September can learn from the committee, the Deseret News or KSL only whether their district is one of the seven — not whether their school is one of the 72.
What happens next
The last ceremony on the published schedule was September 16 at Fairview Elementary in Mt. Pleasant. Utah 2034 has described this as the inaugural pilot and as the first phase of a broader education strategy, which implies expansion beyond the original seven districts, though no published account from Utah 2034, the Deseret News or KSL gives a timeline for it or an application route for schools outside the pilot.
Wilson said the supply of willing athletes is not the constraint. "We have Olympic and Paralympic athletes that want to be part of this, because there's just nothing quite like inspiring the youth in our state and our community."
The children in the Backman assembly on September 1 were in kindergarten through sixth grade. The Games they were being told about arrive in 2034.
Key facts:
- Program: Utah 2034 Champion Schools, run by the Utah 2034 organizing committee with Ken Garff for Good
- Scale: 72 elementary schools across seven school districts — Salt Lake City, Granite, Cache County, Uintah County, Duchesne County, Iron County and North Sanpete
- Basis: the IOC's Olympic Values Education Programme, which Utah 2034 says has been implemented in 138 countries and reached more than 60 million young people
- Launched: September 1, 2026, at Backman Elementary in Salt Lake City; Utah 2034 scheduled seven opening ceremonies through September 16
- Ceremony locations: five of the seven scheduled stops are outside the Salt Lake valley — Nibley, Vernal, Roosevelt, Cedar City and Mt. Pleasant
- Named leadership: Brad Wilson (CEO, Utah 2034), Amy Garff (chair, Utah 2034 Education Committee), Erin Trenbeath-Murray (president, Ken Garff for Good)
- Athletes at the launch: bobsledders Hunter Powell and Kaysha Love, and Paralympic snowboarder Joe Pleban
- Not stated in any of the sources above: the full list of 72 participating schools, or the criteria used to select the seven districts
