August 2009
The Youth Tour is an Investment in the Future
by Keven Groenewold
A nation’s future cannot be foreseen by its gross national product or the strength of its armies. Neither do its mineral resources and its manufacturing capacity tell its true worth. In fact, none of the standard measures used by economists and politicians foretell any nation’s destiny.
Only a nation’s young people can fulfill tomorrow’s expectations. Their enthusiasm and commitment are the seeds of its future. Without them, tomorrow would be very bleak indeed. With them, a nation grows stronger and creates a prosperous future for generations to come.
That’s why rural electric cooperatives sponsor more than 1,800 outstanding high school juniors for a one-week trip to Washington, D.C., each year. We believe our young people benefit from seeing America’s capitol first-hand.
We believe they benefit from walking the halls of Congress, visiting their state’s congressional delegation, touring the Supreme Court, and visiting monuments like Arlington National Cemetery and laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
We also want them to meet each other. We want the 34 students from New Mexico to meet their counterparts from the other states that jointly create this important event. We want them to know they are part of the greatest consumer alliance in our country—the 42 million Americans in 47 states who jointly own their electric cooperatives.
We want them to know there are other young people just like them in thousands of communities and towns across America. We want them to know going to school, getting good grades and caring about their hometowns isn’t unusual. We want them to know it’s normal behavior and that there is a world of people, young and old, who also work hard, play hard and care hard.
We want them to know that their opinion matters. They learn how to present ideas and debate issues with our elected leaders. This trip exposes young people to a much bigger world and the opportunity to learn how to make a difference.
Some of the students had never left home before. Many had never flown or stayed in a big city hotel. Only a few had walked in the buildings that have housed America’s federal government since it moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in 1801.
One of those leaders was Lyndon Baines Johnson, congressman and senator from Texas and president of the United States. At the NRECA annual meeting in 1957, while serving as the Senate majority leader, he called on electric co-ops to create a program to “[send] youngsters to the national capital where they can actually see what the flag stands for and represents.”
We’ve been doing this for a half-century now. Throughout those decades, we’ve believed in the wisdom of showing our high school leaders what the flag stands for and represents. And, we’ve been pleased to hear, year after year, those young people respond by saying, “This was the most important trip of my life.”
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