Three students from the Medina Electric Cooperative service area will join 1,500 others from across the country on the trip of a lifetime June 16-23 as part of the Government-in-Action Youth Tour. In addition to the trip, the contest winners will each receive a $1,000 scholarship toward their educational expenses after they graduate from high school. The students will gather in Austin and then head to Washington, D.C., where they will visit major landmarks, meet their elected officials, and learn about the U.S. and electric cooperative history.
Youth Tour has a long record of educating young people about our government. Then-Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson inspired the trip when he addressed the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Annual Meeting in Chicago in 1957. The senator declared, “If one thing goes out of this meeting, it will be sending youngsters to the national capital where they can actually see what the flag stands for and represents.”
Since then, more than 75,000 young Americans have participated in this educational program. Medina EC has sent 45 students on the trip since 2007. More information about Medina EC’s Youth Tour program can be found at MedinaEC.org/YouthTour.
Applicants were asked to write an essay in response to the following prompt: What would life be like without electricity? How does it add value to our lives? Applicants were also asked to provide a list of their extracurricular activities and community involvement and to describe their career goals and why they wanted to attend Youth Tour.
Read a snippet of the 2024 recipients’ essays below. Sign up to receive information about the 2025 Youth Tour trip at MedinaEC.org/YouthTour.
