Youth Tour 2025

Empowering Local Youth in D.C.

Rising high school seniors from across the Eastern Shore traveled with Choptank Electric to Washington, D.C., in June to participate in the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour. This weeklong program allows students from across the country to tour our nation’s capital and understand how advocating for rural communities can make an impact at home.
 
Choptank was proud to sponsor the following students this year: Aiyanna Groce, Ava Andrew and Blaiden Roe from Colonel Richardson High School, Madisyn Moore from Easton High School and Caroline Winterstein from Queen Anne’s County High School.

 
Participants attended several activities focusing on leadership development and electric co-op advocacy, including NRECA Youth Day with all 1,500 students in a pep rally. The duration of the week was spent touring with  other students from electric cooperatives in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware with the regional association. The group visited monuments, Smithsonian museums, Arlington National Cemetery, a National’s baseball game and took a dinner cruise on the Potomac River.

In addition to the activitiesand tours, the pinnacle of Youth Tour was Hill Day. Choptank Electric students were able to meet with Sen. Chris Van Hollen and staff from the offices of Rep. Andy Harris and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks.

“Seeing the excitement these students have while walking around the heart of Washington, D.C., is inspiring,” shares Katie Luckett, Director of Marketing, Communications & Education for Choptank Electric and a Youth Tour chaperone. “It’s such a great experience for them to meet their state representatives at a young age — one that I know makes a lasting impression for years to come.” 

They also received a tour of the Capitol building and learned about the history of the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour. The program traces its origins to NRECA’s 1957 Annual Meeting, when then-Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson said in his address to the association, “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.”
 
Nearly 100,000 students from rural areas and small towns across America have participated in this program. Applications for the 2026 Youth Tour will open in October. To learn more and apply to be sponsored by Choptank Electric, visit www.choptankelectric.coop/youth-tour.