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SWRE
Youth Tour Contest
Open to Texoma 11th Grade Students
Southwest
Rural Electric Cooperative will provide two area high school juniors with the
trip of a lifetime this summer. Top prize in SWRE’s annual youth tour contest
for one Oklahoma student and one Texas student will be an all-expense-paid trip to
Washington, D.C. for a close-up look at our nation’s
government in action.
All
other contest finalists will receive a cash prize of
$100.
The
contest is open to all 11th grade students who attend a high school
in the SWRE service area. Eligibility is not limited only to students whose
families purchase electricity from SWRE. Any student may
enter.
In
Texas, SWRE area schools include Chillicothe, Crowell, Electra, Harrold, Northside, and Vernon.
Oklahoma schools in the SWRE area are Altus, Blair, Davidson, Frederick, Navajo, Snyder, and Tipton.
To
enter the contest, 11th grade students must write a 500-750 word
essay on a specified topic that relates to the importance of electricity in
rural America. Essays must be received at
the SWRE office in Tipton,
Oklahoma, by Wednesday, February
27, 2008.
Based
on the essays, eight students will be invited to SWRE’s Tipton headquarters in
late March to meet with contest judges and present the information from their
essays. At that time winners of the Washington, D.C. trips will be named and cash prizes will
be awarded to the finalists.
The
winning Texas student and Oklahoma student will travel to Washington, D.C. in mid-June with state delegations of
youth tour winners. In the nation’s capital they will tour the U.S. Capitol,
meet with elected officials, and visit important monuments and locations,
including the White House and Mount
Vernon.
Complete
information resource packets for entering the contest have been provided to
11th grade English teachers in schools throughout the SWRE service
area.
The
contest packets may also be obtained by calling Southwest Rural Electric at
1-800-256-7973. In addition, the entry material may be downloaded from the SWRE
web site: www.swre.com.
“Service
to the youth of our area has been a Southwest Rural Electric tradition since the
cooperative was established in 1937,” said Mike Hagy, SWRE CEO. “For more than
40 years our cooperative has sponsored the annual youth tour contest and sent
two students each year to our nation’s capital. For many of those young people,
the trip has been incredibly positive, life-changing experience. I encourage all
11th grade students in area schools to participate in the 2007
contest. Their reward may be great.”
PDF of the 2008 Youth Tour Booklet and Application
Last year's Youth Tour winners...
March 30, 2007
2007 SWRE
Youth Tour Winners Named
Washington, D.C. will
be the destination this summer for two Texoma students who have
been named as winners in Southwest Rural Electric Association’s
annual Youth Tour Contest.
Nick Lehman, a junior
at Vernon High School, will represent SWRE’s service area
in Texas.
Jade Terbush, a junior
at Navajo High School northeast of Altus, was chosen to represent
SWRE’s Oklahoma service area.
Lehman is the son of
Mark and Deana Lehman of Vernon and a student of Vernon High English
instructor Janna Monday.
Terbush is the son of
Lonnie and Stacie Terbush of rural Blair and a student of English
instructor Cindy Cross at Navajo High School.
The two contest winners
will travel to Washington, D.C. in June with other students from
electric co-ops in their respective states. The Youth Tour groups
will visit the U.S. Capitol, the White House, Washington, D.C.’s
many memorials and museums, and Arlington National Cemetery. They
will also have the opportunity to visit with numerous elected officials.
In addition to Lehman
and Terbush, other finalists in the SWRE Youth Tour competition
were Kelsey Brightbill, Harrold, TX; Jurie duToit, Frederick, OK;
Autumn Roberts, Blair, OK; Stevie Rodriguez, Chillicothe, TX; Brittany
Sammons, Tipton, OK; and Corey Samson, Northside High School north
of Vernon, TX. Each finalist received a $100 cash prize.
The SWRE Youth Tour
Contest began in 1964. It is open each year to all 11th grade students
who live or attend school in the SWRE service area. Participating
students do not have to be from SWRE member families.
To enter, students are
required to write a 500-750-word essay on a specific topic that
relates to SWRE services. Essays are evaluated to determine eight
finalists -- four from Oklahoma schools and four from Texas schools.
Each year’s finalists
are invited to an event at SWRE headquarters where they are asked
to present oral interpretations of their essays and answer questions
about SWRE services posed by a panel of three judges.
This year’s Youth
Tour Contest event was held in Tipton, Oklahoma, on March 27.
Event judges were Sondra Boykin, communications coordinator at Western
Farmers Electric Co-op; Lainial Gilbert, longtime educator and retired
Oklahoma State Department of Education official; and Patty Neuwirth,
Lawton businesswoman, civic and youth volunteer.
“Southwest Rural
Electric is a strong supporter of youth and school programs throughout
out 11-county service area,” said Mike Hagy, SWRE CEO. “We
received many excellent essays. The eight contest finalists represented
their schools and home communities very well. Texhoma has great
young people, and we at SWRE are incredibly proud of them and their
accomplishments.”
Southwest Rural Electric
Association is a cooperative that provides electric service in a
6,000 square mile area of North Texas and Southwest Oklahoma. The
co-op was incorporated in 1937 and maintains its headquarters in
Tipton, Oklahoma.
Click on photo for larger image

Finalists in SWRE’s 2007 Youth Tour
Contest were (l to r) Jurie duToit, Frederick High School; Brittany
Sammons, Tipton High School; Autumn Roberts, Blair High School;
Jade Terbush (Oklahoma winner), Navajo High School; Nick Lehman
(Texas winner), Vernon High School; Kelsey Brightbill, Harrold High
School; Corey Samson, Northside High School; Stevie Rodriguez, Chillicothe
High School.
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