Each year, CoServ Electric sponsors the Government-in-Action Youth Tour Contest. High school juniors and seniors whose residences CoServ Electric serves have a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D.C. The winners of the 2008 trip are:

George Gianitsos, a junior at Flower Mound High School

Parker R. Luke, a sophomore at Elyon Christian Academy

The education-study program allows our state's future leaders in government, business and communities to join other teens from across the nation in open discussions with federal government and professional association officials regarding current events. Students learn how a cooperatively-structured business is distinguished from other forms of business enterprises, and how co-ops impact our lives on a daily basis. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) hosts the Youth Tour activities.

The trip includes a visit to the student's Congressman's office as well as tours of historic monuments, memorials and the Smithsonian Institution. The tour group travels to Arlington National Cemetery, Washington National Cathedral and to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington. The students also witness a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

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History of the Scholarship

The Youth Tour was born of extemporaneous comments made by Senator Lyndon Johnson as he addressed the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association's (NRECA) Annual Meeting in Chicago in 1957. Senator Johnson called on electric cooperatives to sponsor scholarships to send young people to "the Nation's Capitol to see what the flag stands for." In 1958, electric co-ops in Texas and several other states began sponsoring young people on a study-tour of the Washington, D.C area. In 1964, NRECA began to coordinate the program and asked that each state arrange their schedules so that the youths from various states would be in the nation's capitol simultaneously. Since that time, about 1,500 teenagers from across the country have made the annual trek to see their government in action.

If you would like to learn more about entering next year’s CoServ Government-in-Action Youth Tour Contest, please call Dennis Engelke at (940) 321-7828.