August 2017
Youth Tour teaches students incomparable civics lessons eeping 70 high school juniors entertained, safe and on schedule during a week’s tour of Washington, D.C., is quite a challenge, but worth every effort. Electric cooperatives sponsoring students to the annual Electric Cooperative Youth Tour feel strongly that the program pays immense dividends to both students and their communities. Young people emerge from the program with a deeper understanding of leadership—why it matters, ways to develop it and how to use it in their young (and adult) lives. The Youth Tour is a part of the Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi Youth Leadership program. Since the program’s inception 31 years ago, hundreds of deserving Mississippi students have participated in this unique, enriching experience. Each student earns his or her way into the program by demonstrating initiative and leadership potential through a competition at their local electric cooperative. The competitive process seeks to identify students who not only excel academically but are eager for self-improvement opportunities. This year’s Youth Leadership participants first met a few months ago at our three-day leadership workshop in Jackson. They came from every region in the state, from backgrounds as diverse as Mississippi itself. By the time they departed for the Youth Tour in June, each one had 69 new friends. For most, the tour was their first trip to Washington. During one very busy week, tour buses whisked the students to museums, monuments, memorials, historic sites and even a pro-baseball game. They walked through Arlington National Cemetery, toured the U.S. Capitol and explored the Smithsonian museums. The tour sites were chosen to give the students a broad, eye-opening education on how America works. The lessons touched on history, government, military service, civil rights, science, religion and culture. Throughout Washington, the Youth Tour students saw American values communicated through iconic memorials to war veterans, and monuments to
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On the cover Participants in the 2017 Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi Youth Leadership program recently spent a fun and educational week at Youth Tour in Washington, D.C. Each of the students won the trip through a local competition sponsored by their electric cooperative. Meet these outstanding students on page 6.
presidents and civil rights leaders. At the Newseum, they learned about the five freedoms of the First Amendment: religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. Touring Arlington, they saw sobering reminders of many who lost their lives fighting to protect these freedoms, or while serving their country in other ways. They respectfully watched the elaborate Changing of the Guard ritual at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and viewed the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial. The Washington My Opinion National Cathedral, one of Michael Callahan the largest cathedrals in the Executive Vice President/CEO world, underscored the Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi theme of religious liberty. It was built over the course of 83 years to be the nation’s “house of prayer for all people” regardless of faith. There the students saw the pulpit where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last Sunday sermon before his assassination in 1968, the tomb of President Woodrow Wilson, as well as the cathedral’s great organ with more than 10,000 pipes. I can’t imagine any young person returning from Youth Tour without a newfound appreciation for his or her country. Judging from years’ worth of past participants’ comments, we believe the entire Youth Leadership program makes a life-long impression. Electric cooperatives continue to support the program because it succeeds in motivating students to become better prepared for (and understand) the duties of citizenship in a free, democratic society. I’m sure these students will remember and benefit from their Youth Tour experience well into adulthood. I hope it makes them more appreciative of being an American. It’s still a great nation.
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Today in Mississippi
Our Homeplace
While we’re all wilting from the heat, it’s nice to see something that thrives in it. These bold sunflowers soak up summer sunshine in a backyard garden in Washington County.
Mississippi is There are many things I treasure about our state, beginning with what we call “old-fashioned, good places to eat country food.” Mississippi is known for church-going people who have a history of old-time revivals and lake baptisms. I treasure those memories. I left Mississippi as a young man headed off to military duty in 1974 and was drawn back by the Lord, I believe in 2003, to help spread the love of God in the state where my earthly birth, as well as my spiritual birth, took roots. I embrace and love the waves through the windshields of our cars and trucks when meeting strangers and neighbors from all walks of life on the county roads. –Eddie N. Young Jr., Olive Branch After spending 70 years of life in Louisiana, my husband and I find ourselves living in lovely Mississippi. The “great flood” of 2016 took our home in Baton Rouge and most everything in it (like so many others). Something really good came from something really bad. Thanks to a kind and generous man in the Poplarville area, we are renting a home in a lovely place, with the use of everything here: fishing lakes, trails, wildflowers, lightning bugs and clean air. We have never seen so many wildflowers, nice people and so few red lights. We always passed through Mississippi to go to North Carolina on vacation and always thought we would like living here. It took the flood to open our eyes and take a chance on living in the country. It kind of made retirement like it’s meant to be. We were truly blessed to get what we wished for! –Carolyn and Thomas Gilmore, Poplarville
What’s Mississippi to you? What do you treasure most about life in our state? Send your thoughts to Today in Mississippi, P.O. Box 3300, Ridgeland, MS 39158, or to news@ecm.coop. Please keep your comments brief. Submissions are subject to editing for length and clarity.
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