OEC’s 2024 Youth Tour concluded on June 21, setting a record for the number of cooperatives participating in the program. A total of 50 student delegates from 20 Ohio cooperatives and one West Virginia co-op, Harrison REA, traveled to Washington D.C. for a week-long educational trip.
This year, approximately 2,200 Youth Tour delegates from across the country stayed at The Gaylord at National Harbor. OEC’s Youth Tour Director Missy Kidwell, along with other volunteer chaperones, led the delegates through an itinerary that included numerous iconic sites in Washington D.C.
The sites visited included:
– Flight 93 Memorial, Pennsylvania
– Gettysburg Battlefield, Maryland
– Potomac River Boat Dinner Cruise
– U.S. Capitol Building
– Legislator Visits
– Steven F. Udvar Hazy Air & Space Center
– World War II Memorial
– Korean War Memorial
– Vietnam War Memorial
– Iwo Jima Sunset Parade
– Library of Congress
– The U.S. Supreme Court
– The White House
– National 9/11-Pentagon Memorial
– United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
– Arlington National Cemetery
– Natural History & American History Museums
– National Archives
– Washington Monument
– Jefferson Memorial
– Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
– Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial
Youth Tour and Youth Leadership Council participants are high school sophomores and juniors living on cooperative lines.
For over 50 years, high school students nationwide have participated in this trip to Washington D.C., sponsored by their local electric cooperatives, state associations, and the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (NRECA). The tour provides students with opportunities to explore the nation’s capital, meet elected officials representing their hometowns, interact with other cooperative students from across the country, and learn about the electric co-op network.
Each participant has a chance to be selected as their state representative on NRECA’s Youth Leadership Council (YLC). If elected by fellow delegates, a state YLC representative will deliver speeches for their sponsoring co-op’s board of directors, collaborate on October Co-op Month projects, speak at annual meetings, among other responsibilities.
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