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Stuart News-Port St. Lucie News/Fort
Pierce Tribune / Jupiter Courier/Fort Pierce News (FL)
February 21, 2006
Grandparents enjoy Olympian Hannah Teter's snowboarding win
Author: TYLER TREADWAY tyler.treadway@scripps.com
Edition: Martin County
FORT PIERCE -- Harry Carr, a 76-year-old
resident of Spanish Lakes County Club Village, is fluent in "Tetertalk," the
snowboarder lingo named for one of its most colorful practitioners, Olympic
gold medalist Hannah Teter.
It helps that Teter, who won the women's halfpipe competition in Torino,
Italy, on Feb. 13, is Carr's granddaughter.
That's why Carr wouldn't be taken aback if, for example, Teter said,
"Granddad, you look sick."
"'Sick' is something good," Carr explained. "Actually, quite good."
If that's the case, the barely 19-year-old Teter must be at death's door.
It's not just that she mined gold in Italy, it's that she did it with an
engaging laid-back style.
Asked her plans after her gold medal performance, Teter said: "I just want
to ride and smile, that's what's going on, that's what's rolling."
And after relaxing in the guest chair Thursday on "Late Night" wearing her
trademark "Huggy Bear" cap, a captivated David Letterman remarked that Teter
has the world by the tail.
But don't let the seemingly slacker attitude fool you, Carr said.
Carr remembers looking out the picture window of his summer house in
Vermont, which is about 300 feet from the Teter home, "and watching Hannah
swimming dozens of laps in the pond out back. Then I'd look out, and she'd
be practicing maneuvers on the trampoline. Then more laps in the pond. Then
she'd be running up a hill like it was nothing. Then, 10 or 15 minutes
later, she'd be off on her bike."
And when Teter and her brothers Elijah and Abe, both professional
snowboarders, went away to train together, Carr said, Teter promised to get
them in shape.
"Well," Carr added, "one of the brothers called home and said, 'Mom, she's
gonna kill us.' Hannah's a bit more determined than her older brothers are
and, I swear, she's in better physical condition."
Carr said his granddaughter's head is on right, too; he doesn't think the
post-Olympic whirlwind will inflate her ego.
"I haven't seen signs of that," Carr said, "and I don't expect to. Her
parents (Jeff and Pat Carr Teter) are both very down-to-earth persons, so
they won't allow it. To me, it's always a surprise that she has the same
naturalness she's always had. She's just a delightful person."
Copyright, 2006, E.W. Scripps Company
Record Number: 433709418
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