The City of PyeongChang in South Korea invited the City of Auburn to the opening ceremony of this year’s Winter Olympics.
"To the best of my knowledge, we are the only one that has been invited," said Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus.
Auburn and PyeongChang are sister cities, a global diplomacy network that aims to strengthen relationships between American and international cities.
"The theme for the Winter Olympics is peace and I think it’s the most appropriate theme right now because we can use a little peace in our world," said Backus. "The economic development and the trade, that’s really the opportunity we see and the benefit that we've had. We've taken some of our local business owners on these trips, and they have benefitted. So there's importing and exporting going on, and it really has been beneficial to our city.”
In preparation for their trip, the City of Auburn is bringing a token of appreciation with them.
"We've found this beautiful prism. We have the Winter Olympics on the inside, and on one side is the City of Auburn logo and the other side is a PyeongChang logo."
"That's history in the making. And to know that I was there, to know that we'll have a delegation from Auburn that will be there. I'm very very proud," said Backus.
