Finding new perspectives

YEC sends local students on summer youth trips

By Josh P. Crotzer

The view from the buck­et of a util­i­ty truck look­ing out over a rur­al hori­zon cer­tain­ly looks dif­fer­ent than the view from the steps of the U.S. Capi­tol. Both, though, are places where local high school stu­dents stood and gained new per­spec­tives, along with peers from across the Pal­met­to State, on life-chang­ing sum­mer trips spon­sored by York Elec­tric and South Carolina’s elec­tric coop­er­a­tives.

Char McDow­ell of Clover, Heather Green­wald of Indi­an Land and Lil­ly Burke of York were among 57 South Car­oli­na teens who trav­eled to the nation’s cap­i­tal in June through the co-ops’ Wash­ing­ton Youth Tour. Ellie Dis­mukes of York, Pey­ton Sell­ers of Tega Cay and Angel Weaver of Fort Mill also joined 42 oth­er high school stu­dents for Coop­er­a­tive Youth Sum­mit in July in Colum­bia and New­ber­ry.

The Wash­ing­ton Youth Tourists spent six days vis­it­ing mon­u­ments, muse­ums and memo­ri­als. They also went to the U.S. Capi­tol, where they met with con­gres­sion­al staff. After­ward, U.S. Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott talked with the stu­dents and answered their ques­tions on the Capi­tol steps.

For Green­wald, the day at the Capi­tol felt like a glimpse into her future.

“Our tour guide told us that out of all the stat­ues of impor­tant peo­ple there, there was a space miss­ing for the first female pres­i­dent,” says Green­wald. “When I heard that, I thought that could be me. I have a lot of things in mind that I’d like to do to improve our nation.”

Back in the state cap­i­tal, Youth Sum­mit stu­dents embarked on a four-day explo­ration of their state gov­ern­ment, civic engage­ment and the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el. In addi­tion to a vis­it to the S.C. State­house and Gov. Hen­ry McMaster’s office, stu­dents had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask ques­tions about cur­rent events, as well as state and nation­al pol­i­tics, with Sen­a­tor Mike Fan­ning and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mic­ah Caskey. They toured New­ber­ry Elec­tric Cooperative’s head­quar­ters, where buck­ets trucks lift­ed many of them more than 100 feet in the air.

They also par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pub­lic speak­ing com­pe­ti­tion, in which teams devel­oped pre­sen­ta­tions argu­ing for and against cur­rent polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al issues, such as ban­ning Tik­Tok and sub­si­diz­ing elec­tric vehi­cles. Sell­ers’ team, which argued against EV sub­si­diza­tion, won the competition—and a $1,000 prize apiece.

“I real­ly enjoyed all the activ­i­ties, like rid­ing in the buck­et,” says Sell­ers. “I would rec­om­mend it to any­one who is inter­est­ed in pol­i­tics or any­thing else. It was just so fun and there’s so many peo­ple who want to go into dif­fer­ent things here.”