Wednesday was a day sprinkled with stardust in Berks County.

Silver stardust.

For Wednesday was the day Kristy Kowal came home.

It was a Wednesday full of the wonderful tapestry only immense accomplishment and resultant celebration can bring.

It was a Wednesday to cue the rainbow. To cue the violins.

Kristy was home.

Home to her family and her relatives.

Home to her friends, her Colony Park neighbors and the Wilson School District community she grew up in.

No Berks County athlete had ever won a silver medal in the Olympic Games until Kristy Kowal, the University of Georgia star, did just that in the 200-meter breaststroke in Sydney.

Ever since, she has been scraping fenders with fame.

She's been on the "Today" show. Cameras and microphones have become staples in her life.

And for all of us who have known her through the years, the remarkable aspect about Kristy the celebrity is that she remains simply Kristy.

For the last four years she has been among the world's elite. But she retains the charm of being the just the girl back home.

Which made Wednesday's glory ride home just that more special.

While sneaking a backstage peek at a video of her Olympic heroics during festivities at the Wilson High gym, Kristy was asked if the person she saw swimming on screen seemed like her.

"It's just me who I see," she said with a shy smile.

Exactly.

There's just one Kristy, whether she's standing in the shadows of a darkened gym or in the sterling spotlight of an Olympic medal stand.

Too many athletes return home these days from their moments of triumph and we no longer recognize them.

Ambushed by the intoxication of celebrity, they need a periscope to see a home grown alien to them, all the time wondering why their world is no longer under warranty.

But for Kristy Kowal, it was if she never left home.

Of course, destiny had reached out and anointed her with greatness since she had last seen home.

And when she did return home Wednesday, her jet-lagged body craved silence and stillness.

But sleep would have to wait. This was the time to bask in all the warmth and blurring motion created by the sheer happiness of her admirers.

Upon her arrival at Reading Regional Airport, during a festive parade through her Colony Park neighborhood and onto a grand salute at Wilson High, it was abundantly clear to everyone that the girl they were paying homage to was still their Kristy.

Her response to them was radiant.

"Overwhelming," she said of her reception. "I thought they would be only a couple of people to greet me. You know, a family thing. And my mom told me there would a small thing at the high school."

Small thing?

The spacious gym was packed. Almost every politician in the county was there. Kristy received more trinkets and proclamations than her closet can ever hold.

But her most precious possession was her silver medal, which she proudly held aloft for the crowd to savor.

Check that.

Her most precious possession is not her silver medal.

It's the magnificent support group she has grown up with - her family, her coaches, her teachers, her teammates, her neighbors and her friends.

Indeed, Wednesday was a remarkable day.

For all who were there, it was a day that found a spot behind a knot in the timber of their souls and will stay there forever.

The resolution of a little peace and quiet would have to wait until Thursday for Kristy Kowal and her family and friends.