Youth Tour

What is the Government-in-Action Youth Tour?

Every June, as many as 1,500 high school students from across the country spend a week in the nation's capital as part of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Youth Tour(link is external). The students are sponsored by electric cooperatives – cooperatives that are committed to educating America's rural youth about America and the role electric cooperatives play in developing strong rural communities.

Participating in the Youth Tour is an awesome way to learn about this great nation, develop leadership skills, gain a better understanding of electric cooperatives, and make friendships that will last beyond the week!

Fort Belknap Electric sponsors one student to represent the co-op each year in the Government-in-Action Youth Tour. We sponsor an essay contest and the top 5 essays are selected as finalists. The finalists are interviewed by a panel of judges and the winner is chosen with the essay being half of the score and the interview being the other half of the score. The essay information is available after January 2nd each year and the judging usually occurs in February of each year.

This all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. is a trip of a lifetime!

FBEC Youth Tour contest finalists, from left: Jaycee Bordelon,

Baylee Gray, Caden Lane, Jeffry Flores, Aubree Englishbee

Fort Belknap Electric Names Youth Tour Winners

Baylee Gray, a senior at Woodson High School and daughter of Byron & Ashley Gray, has been selected to represent Fort Belknap Electric Cooperative on the Government-in-Action Youth Tour trip to Washington, D.C. Gray was one of five finalists selected for interviews in the essay contest held February 24 at the Fort Belknap EC office in Olney.

Caden Lane, a junior at Olney High School and son of Brandon and Jennifer Lane, was selected as the alternate in the essay contest.

Jaycee Bordelon, a junior at Woodson High School and daughter of Betty Bordelon, was selected as first runner-up.

Other finalists who participated in the Youth Tour competition were Olney resident Aubree Englishbee, a sophomore at Olney High School and daughter of Jake and Erica Englishbee, and Jeffry Flores, a junior at Olney High School and son of Jose and Isaura Flores.

Gray will travel to Washington on June 15 with more than 150 other Texas teens and chaperones for a fun-filled and educational tour of monuments, memorials and other places of interest in the nation’s capital. This year marks the 59th Youth Tour, which sprang from an idea of then Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson.

We congratulate our winners and finalists and would like to thank each of the students that entered an essay in our contest.