Local students attend Washington Youth Tour

Jul 16, 2013 at 05:50 pm by bryan


More than 140 high school juniors from across Tennessee experienced an in-depth look at our nation’s capital during the 2013 Electric Cooperative’s Washington Youth Tour.

Tennessee’s Youth Tour participants were rewarded with a weeklong tour of Washington, D.C., for writing winning short stories titled “Electric Cooperatives: Powering Your Communities” describing how locally owned, member-controlled electric cooperatives provide valuable community-building support in addition to reliable and affordable electric service.

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Students on the tour visited the White House and memorials to past presidents Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as monuments honoring the sacrifices of veterans of World War II and the Vietnam and Korean conflicts. Strolls through the varied museums of the Smithsonian Institution afforded the students opportunities to learn more about science, history and art. Other stops included homes of former presidents — George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s Monticello — a performance of “Shear Madness” at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a boat cruise down the Potomac River and tours of the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, Ford’s Theatre and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.  The Youth Tour also included a solemn and sobering visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where the group laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Later in the tour, the Tennesseans were welcomed to the U.S. Capitol by Reps. Marsha Blackburn and Stephen Fincher, and their staff members treated students to a special after-hours, VIP tour. Students also met Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker as well as former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.

The Electric Cooperative Youth Tour has been an annual, joint effort of local electric co-ops, their statewide co-op associations and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association for more than 40 years.

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