Youth Tour

Youth Tour 2008 Update

Youth Tour Winners -- Youth Tour Brochure   

What is Youth Tour?


Each year Ozark Electric sponsors an essay contest to select two area high school juniors to represent the Cooperative on the National Rural Electric Youth Tour -- an exciting week-long, all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D.C. in June!
These two Ozark Electric delegates travel with approximately 80 students from across Missouri for a week of sightseeing, learning, and fun! This year’s trip is scheduled for June 13-19, 2008. Missouri delegates and their parents will attend a banquet and orientation in Jefferson City the first night before delegates fly out the next day to D.C. Read on!


Contest Rules:
*Student eligibility. This contest is open to any current high school junior attending a school located in one of the nine counties served by Ozark Electric Cooperative (Barry, Christian, Dade, Greene, Jasper, Lawrence, Newton, Polk, or Stone counties). *Immediate family members of Ozark Electric employees or board members are ineligible to compete.

 

Essay Requirements:
Each contestant is required to write and submit a typewritten, double-spaced essay of at least 300, but not more than 500, words in length.


Essay Title: “It’s 1937 and the REA (Ozark Electric Cooperative) is coming
to your rural area. Convince your neighbors why they should sign up for electricity.”
As you develop and write your essay, you MUST discuss the following topics:
(1) Give a convincing argument about why your neighbor should pay the $5 membership
fee to join Ozark Electric Cooperative’s REA and have power lines built to their home. How will it benefit them? Address their concerns. Remember--it’s 1937.
(2) Give a short history of Ozark Electric Cooperative and REA (Rural Electric Administration). How did REA and Ozark Electric Cooperative bring electricity to rural people in this area?
(3) Discuss the difference between rural electric cooperatives and other types of utilities. What are the advantages to being a member of a rural electric cooperative?

 

Resource Materials:
•”Rural Missouri” newspaper
•”The Next Greatest Thing,” 1984 NRECA (There should be a copy in your school library.)
•The following websites:
www.ozarkelectric.com
www.nreca.org
www.aeci.org
www.amec.org


Final judging/interviews: Essays will be read by impartial judges, and preliminary finalists will be selected and notified. The finalists will then be called for an oral interview before a panel of judges, and the two winners will be selected. Judging will be according to the following criteria:
•Subject knowledge 40%
•Originality 30%
•Grammar 10%
•Composition 10%
•Neat Appearance 10%

 

Essay cover sheet: Please attach a cover sheet as the first page of your essay. It must contain the following personal information:
•Full name
•Age
•Grade
•High School
•English teacher’s name & phone #
•Parents/Guardians’ names
•Your address
•Your telephone number


DEADLINE: Essays must be received by 5:00 pm on Friday, March 7, 2008.
Please mail or deliver to:
Linda Stander
Youth Tour 2008
Ozark Electric Cooperative
P.O. Box 420, 10943 Hwy 39
Mt. Vernon, MO 65712
Any questions??? Feel free to call Linda at 1-800-947-6393, ext. 2317.


MORE OPPORTUNITIES...
CYCLE: Ozark Electric’s Youth Tour Third & Fourth place runners-up will attend the all-expenses-paid, three-day Cooperative Youth Conference & Leadership Experience (CYCLE) in Jefferson City in July. At this conference you will learn 1) leadership skills, 2) Missouri Government, and 3) the Cooperative form of business in a FUN, FAST, & FRIENDLY atmosphere! YLC: Each year while in Washington DC, Missouri selects one of its Youth Tour delegates as the Youth Leadership Council (YLC) representative who then travels around the state and nation meeting new people, speaking at conferences, and representing our State for a whole school year. It’s another opportunity of a lifetime, and you could be that person!