Students who attend our Zoom sessions in October will have a chance to win AirPods and a $1,000 college scholarship!

For decades, Iowa has been sending deserving high school students to our nation’s capital as part of the national Electric Cooperative Youth Tour program. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the trip was canceled in 2020 and 2021, but is scheduled to return in 2022.
To bridge the gap in not having a Youth Tour for the past two summers, Iowa’s electric cooperatives are pleased to offer a new opportunity for rural students to learn more about advocacy, electric cooperative career opportunities and the cooperative business model. The Iowa Youth Leadership Academy will be held as a three-part webinar series in October and is open to any high school student in the state. Students can register at www.IowaYouthTour.com.

Who should attend?

This new program is geared for rural Iowa students who have a passion for public service, leadership or government. The goal of the Iowa Youth Leadership Academy is to raise students’ awareness of the role electric cooperatives have in their local communities. In addition, participants will learn about electric cooperative careers.

Zoom sessions in October

Once students register online for the Iowa Youth Leadership Academy, they can attend the webinars from their own computer or mobile device. Each Zoom session will last around 45-60 minutes and focus on a specific topic.

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 7 p.m. 
Cooperative Business Model

Thursday, Oct. 14, 7 p.m. 
Rural Iowa Advocacy

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 7 p.m.
Civic Involvement & Leadership

During the Zoom sessions, students will be inspired by our speakers and presenters while learning about advocacy and leadership. Attendees will also hear from former Iowa Youth Tour students who pursued their passion for government service and leadership after attending the weeklong trip to Washington, D.C.   

Featured speakers

Haley Moon
Advocacy and Political Action Manager Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives

Adam Schwartz
Founder & Principal The Cooperative Way

Kathleen Riessen
Leadership Expert Kathleen Riessen & Company

Opportunities to win

At the end of each live session, one lucky attendee will be selected at random to win a pair of Apple AirPods. Students who attend all three sessions will be entered into a random drawing for a $1,000 college scholarship

Save the date! The 2022 Electric Cooperative Youth Tour is slated for June 18-24. 

“Students really need to take advantage of all the opportunities that the Iowa Youth Tour provides – not only what participants see and do while in D.C., but also for the lifelong opportunities. The activities are great networking events with electric cooperatives and peers from around the state. I’m constantly running into people I met. Even today,  through my job, I interact with people that went on the Iowa Youth Tour.”

Jacob Holck 
(2016 Iowa Youth Tour participant)
Communications Specialist 
Office of Iowa Secretary of State

Learn more at www.IowaYouthTour.com or contact your local co-op for more information.

Joining about 1,800 students from across the country, 37 Iowa students made the annual pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., last month, celebrating the 60^thanniversary of the educational trip that originated in the Hawkeye State. Participants met their U.S. representatives and senators, started and ran their own cooperative, met student leaders from nearly every state and watched history come alive as they explored museums, memorials, monuments and other sites. Best of all, the students made friendships that will last a lifetime.

Here's what they said about the trip

“I got to be immersed in history through monuments and memorials, which taught me more than any history textbook ever could.”  (Katelyn Langel, North West REC)

“It was a great experience. I’ve already explained the application process to a younger member of my co-op!” (Luke Tuecke, Allamakee-Clayton Electric Cooperative)

“It was literally the experience of a lifetime.” (Kaitlyn Faber, Chariton Valley Electric Cooperative, Inc.) 

“We did all this while gaining a greater appreciation for our electric cooperative and all that they do for our rural communities.” (Joe Anderson, Lyon REC) 

“This experience has opened my eyes to a world of possibilities.” (Halie Heitritter, Lyon REC)

“Youth Tour has given me a deeper understanding of our country ... ” (Madalyn Weber, Farmers Electric Cooperative (Greenfield) 

“You never know who you will meet or even the opportunities that may come as a result of participating in Youth Tour.” (Hollie Nelson, Access Energy Cooperative)  

“I highly recommend this opportunity to every single person out there, as you come back with a new attitude and a ton of new friends!” (Mackenna Pannhoff, Heartland Power Cooperative)

He’s the YLC delegate! 

Jacob Risse from Butler County REC was selected to serve as Iowa’s Youth Leadership Council delegate during the Youth Tour. He will travel back to Washington, D.C., this month for leadership training and to enhance his knowledge of the energy industry and the cooperative business model.

He also will speak at the annual meeting of the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives in December and attend the annual meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Orlando next year.

Jacob will be a senior at Wapsi Valley High School in the fall, where he’s been involved in band as the saxophone section leader and the National Honor Society. He’s also the FFA chapter president for 2018-2019.

After successfully launching a snack cooperative for Iowa’s hungry students last year, the organizers of the 2018 trip decided to kick the concept up a notch. This year’s D.C. Munchie Cooperative became a fully functioning co-op with 43 members who each paid $1 to join, five elected board members, a CEO/general manager and other employees.

The co-op raised additional capital for purchasing snacks by borrowing $131 from a special trust fund and by selling punch cards students could use for purchases at the co-op’s store. The co-op also held regular meetings and sent out daily safety messages to members – plus ads to encourage them to patronize the co-op’s store, which based its inventory on responses to a member survey.

By the end of the week, the D.C. Munchie Cooperative had generated a margin, so the board of directors declared a distribution to members, paid back the loan (plus interest) and held back a small amount to restart the co-op next year.

Thanks to this year's participating co-ops and other supporters!

A remark 61 years ago from a future president sparked the development of a national week-long education program called Youth Tour that continues to motivate students to pursue their passions for public service and politics.

Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson is credited with inspiring the Youth Tour when he addressed the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Annual Meeting in Chicago in 1957. The senator declared, “If one thing comes 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.”

Consequently, some Texas electric cooperatives sent groups of young people to Washington to work during the summer in Sen. Johnson’s office. In 1958, rural electric cooperatives in Iowa sponsored the first group of 34 young people on a week-long study tour of our nation’s capital.

From that original group of Iowa students, eight reached out and shared their memories with us. For two students, the trip uncovered something in common between a geek and a jock, which eventually led to marriage. Another student credits that 1958 trip with giving her a direction for a lifelong career path. Sixty years later, these original Youth Tour students still vividly recall the sites of the Washington, D.C. trip, which for many of them was their first and only time in the nation’s capital.

This is true for Doris (Fredrickson) Werning, who distinctly remembers her only trip to Washington, D.C. She submitted a winning essay and was chosen to participate by Monona County REC in Onawa, now part of Western Iowa Power Cooperative. Before her Youth Tour trip in 1958, she’d left Iowa’s boundaries just once – to visit the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Her fondest memories of Youth Tour were visiting the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Monument and the Washington Monument. In fact, she walked to the top of the Washington Monument, and the view from that vantage point is a fond memory she’ll always treasure. After all these years, Doris still has the color film slides given to her by the co-op after the trip for her to use at community presentations. She describes the trip as “truly one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.”

Doris connected us with two more students from the 1958 trip – Larry Rettig and Wilma (Shoup) Rettig, who were both sponsored by Amana Society Service Co. Larry and Wilma knew of each other, but didn’t seem to have much in common. Wilma says, “If you had told us we would someday marry each other, we would have both said no way! Larry was the geek and I was the jock.”

Each submitted an essay to their co-op about what rural electrification meant to them and their communities, and they were both selected as winners. Larry and Wilma had something in common after all, and the seeds of a longstanding marriage were planted on that trip to Washington, D.C., 60 years ago. After talking with us about her memories of the trip, Wilma went up to their attic and found a scrapbook she made after returning home, and it brought back a flood of memories for the couple.

For another student from southwest Iowa, the Youth Tour would prove to have a major impact on her career path. Mary Ella Holt Yearns, sponsored byRideta Electric, Inc., in Mt. Ayr (now Southwest Iowa REC), says a visit to the USDA Research Center sparked her future career as an extension housing specialist at Iowa State University. The predecessor to this magazine, Iowa REC News, ran a cover story almost 20 years ago on the important work she was doing in the field of universal home design. You’ll learn more about Mary and her career in an upcoming issue.

Other Youth Tour students remarked that the trip gave them a deeper appreciation for government. Wendell Debner, sponsored by Butler County REC, recalled, “at the formative age of 17, I learned a great deal about who occupied the positions of political power and how government worked. I remember meeting our senators, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, and visiting the White House and Capitol, along with many historic sites and monuments. This experience provided an early stimulus for my active citizenship over the years. I have valued the contribution that cooperative organizations make to the economy of our nation.”

For Janice (Hale) Larsen, seeing the historic sites in person made them very real and increased her interest in happenings at home and abroad. Sponsored by Winnebago REC in north-central Iowa (now Heartland Power Cooperative), she shares that “most importantly, I was left with the conviction that being a citizen mattered and that by voting I had an important voice in our government.”

Susan Hoskinson, sponsored by Adams County Cooperative Electric (now Southwest Iowa REC), shared similar sentiments. “Aside from the tour’s impact on my own personal life, the Iowa Youth Tour gave me a lifelong appreciation for the leadership provided by people such as my dad, who served Adams County’s rural electrification efforts as treasurer and board member from the time of my earliest memories … members of our group gained a better understanding of the impact upon our own lives that resulted from one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the R.E.A. Our meetings with various top public and private program administrators helped explain the concept of low-interest loans that were offered to cooperatives through the USDA’s Rural Electrification Administration, beginning in the mid-1930s … the Iowa Youth Tour gave me an introduction to the study of history and politics that I continue to pursue.”

Myron Pringle, who still farms with his youngest son near Cherokee, recalled many wonderful memories of his 1958 trip. He fondly remembers Gettysburg, Ford’s Theatre, Mt. Vernon, the Lincoln Memorial and seeing the Bell X-1 aircraft at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Myron was particularly awed by the Iwo Jima Memorial, which had been dedicated just a few years earlier in 1954.

During the past 60 years, more than 50,000 students from rural communities across the nation have participated in the annual electric cooperative Youth Tour to Washington, D.C. Iowa’s electric cooperatives continue to invest in the next generation of cooperative membership, and they’re sending 37 students on the Youth Tour this month. You can read about their experiences in next month’s issue. 

Erin Campbell is the Director of Communications for the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives.

With that encouragement, some Texas electric co-ops sent groups of young people to work during the summer in the senator’s Washington, D.C., office. In 1958 – according to an original itinerary for the trip – 17 electric co-ops in Iowa (and three from Nebraska) sponsored the first group of 29 young people on a weeklong study tour of the nation’s capital. Later that same year, another busload headed to the nation’s capital from Illinois. The idea grew, and other states sent busloads of students throughout the summer. By 1959, the “youth tour” had grown to 130 participants.

In 1964, NRECA began to coordinate joint activities among the state delegations and suggested that co-op representatives from each state arrange to be in Washington, D.C., during Youth Tour week. The first year of the coordinated tour included about 400 teens from 12 states.

During the last 50 years, nearly 50,000 students from rural areas and small towns across America have participated in this program. Last year, electric co-ops from 43 states sent more than 1,600 students and 250 chaperones on the trip.