Carthage, TN – 16-year-old Savanna Bryant of Gordonsville High School has returned from visiting the nation’s capital June 17 – 23, as Upper Cumberland EMC’s delegate in the 2022 Washington Youth Tour. Savanna earned her spot on the trip by writing a winning 900-word essay, joining 48 students served by other Tennessee cooperatives on the weeklong trip.
The annual event, sponsored by UCEMC and the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association, provides young leaders with an opportunity to explore the nation’s capital, learn about government and cooperatives and develop their leadership skills. Students were selected for the trip by writing short stories titled “Electric Cooperatives – Building a Brighter Tennessee” that explain how co-ops like UCEMC are investing in the future of the communities they serve. Plans for this fall’s 2023 essay contest will soon be shared with high school guidance counselors and students in the UCEMC service area.
Details about the Washington Youth Tour and the essay contest may be found at ucemc.com. “These young people are our region’s future leaders,” says Jennifer Brogdon, General Manager and CEO of UCEMC. “The Youth Tour is a unique opportunity for them to experience the history and public policy up-close and personal and to develop leadership skills and knowledge
that will serve our communities for years to come.”
While in Washington, D.C., Tennessee’s Youth Tour delegates saw 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 Wars. During visits to the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, the touring Tennesseans saw and experienced natural, historic, and artistic treasures. Other fun stops included historic homes of former presidents — George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s Monticello — as well as the National Museum of the Marine Corps, the National Cathedral, and a boat cruise down the Potomac River. The group also paid a solemn and sobering visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where the delegates laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
The group was welcomed to the U.S. Capitol by Senators Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty, and the Tennessee congressional delegation members. They posed for photos and answered questions. President Lyndon Johnson inspired the Washington Youth Tour in 1957 by encouraging electric cooperatives to send youngsters to the nation’s capital. In the years since, more than 6,000 young Tennesseans have enjoyed the Washington Youth Tour.
