After a missed flight and disappointing change in itinerary Monday, losing a little hand hair Tuesday afternoon was not going to dampen Hannah Teter's mood.
Teter, the 2006 Olympic halfpipe snowboarding champion and 2010 silver medalist, had planned to take part in Tuesday's kickoff to the Special Olympics Unified Relay Across America, a 46-day fundraising procession from the East Coast to the site of the 2015 World Summer Games in Los Angeles.
As one of 26 Special Olympics global ambassadors, Teter was slated to appear in Augusta, Maine, on Tuesday morning and then proceed to her native Vermont, where the relay continued into Montpelier that afternoon.
But low fog in San Francisco forced Teter to miss her connection to Chicago and made it impossible to reach Maine in time. The event in Augusta -- one of three to kick off torch relay routes through the northern, central and southern segments of America, along with similar events in Baltimore and West Palm Beach, Florida -- took place as scheduled, sans Teter. But airline trouble couldn't ruin the mini family reunion the Teters had planned around the event.
Undeterred, Hannah and her brother Amen (who doubles as her agent) met their parents and brother Josh in Montpelier. The three Teter siblings (there are five in all) ran with the torch through rolling hills into downtown Montpelier, taking turns holding the torch together and individually. Then they lit the next runner's torch, and the process continued until Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin reached the cauldron at the state Capitol. Shumlin asked Hannah Teter to grab his torch and help him ignite the cauldron, and she obliged.
"He had the high hold and I had the low hold," Teter said. "I didn't expect the flame to go up so high when we lit it, and I had my hand too far in there. It burned all the hair off my hand."
Teter was laughing as she told the story an hour later. Who needs the hand hair, anyway? The significance of the day was much bigger than a few dozen follicles for Teter.
Teter, 28, was asked to join Special Olympics as a global ambassador two years ago during a snowboarding demonstration at the X Games in Aspen, Colorado. The ambassador list also includes basketball stars Yao Ming, Elena Delle Donne and Damian Lillard; NFL cornerback Joe Haden; PGA golfer Padraig Harrington; and the most decorated Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps.
Teter, a conscientious and philanthropic athlete since she was in grade school (she used to donate portions of her dishwashing and lawn-mowing earnings to charity), grew up watching Josh, 33, be treated unkindly because of his intellectual disability. "We were really good friends when we were kids, and I saw a lot of the isolation he faced in the community and at school," said Teter, who also donated three years of contest winnings to her own charity, Hannah's Gold, which supports a rural community in Kenya.
When she accepted the role of global ambassador, she set out to make the millennial demographic more aware of what Josh and his peers experience in daily life and why they deserve equal treatment and compassion. "I feel like my role is to be one of those voices who reaches the youth," Teter said.
In January, she helped get a unified snowboarding race added to the X Games as a medaled event. Two weeks ago, Teter flew to Missoula, Montana, and spoke at Big Sky High School -- which won a fundraising contest by Minutes that Matter, a Special Olympics campaign -- about the competition and the power of inclusion.
She lived that ideal Tuesday in Montpelier. "I don't get to see Josh that much anymore because I live in California and he lives with my parents, but it was fun to go and do something meaningful with him," she said. "He's been a big influence on me my whole life."
Teter, who plans to run in other Unified Relay legs that coincide with her training schedule at Mount Hood in Oregon next month, said her impression of Special Olympics athletes was shaped during a trip to the World Winter Games 2013 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
"Just seeing the skill and the fun and the charisma of all the athletes really blew my other Olympic experiences out of the water," Teter said. "I've been to three Olympics, and they're cool and everything, but I feel like people just aren't grateful for what we have and the opportunities we have.
"When I went to Korea, I saw how these athletes approach their competition and the friendships they all have. It really changed my view on what the Olympic experience can be."
The three Unified Relay routes are slated to visit all 50 states and finish in L.A. on July 10, a plausible road trip south from Teter's home in Lake Tahoe. When the World Summer Games commence two weeks later, Teter plans to be there -- only this time she might drive instead of fly.