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STORY CONTACT: Cindy Badgett (Cumming, June 25, 2009) – More than 100 of Georgia’s brightest students recently returned from the 2009 Washington Youth Tour, a leadership program sponsored by the electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) in Georgia, including Sawnee EMC. At the end of the seven-day trip, held June 11-18, a select group of youth delegates returned home with a firsthand look of the nation’s capitol, a better understanding and appreciation of the sacrifices made by others to ensure their freedom, and hundreds of new friends who have the shared experience of the leadership program. The Youth Tour is an annual event that teaches students about U.S. history, government, and careers in public service. The primary purpose of the Tour is to teach students the values every electric cooperative brings to the communities they serve and to promote civic involvement. This year, Georgia’s EMCs sponsored a total of 103 youth delegates and fourteen (14) chaperones, where they joined more than 1,500 youth from across the nation. “Sponsoring the Youth Tour and giving young people the opportunity to view our government and nation’s capitol on a personal level is extremely important,” says Cindy Badgett, Director of External Affairs of Sawnee EMC, which sponsored two (2) on this year’s tour: Ms. Erika Keil of Duluth and Ms. Danielle Heady of Alpharetta. Erika is a rising senior at South Forsyth High School. She enjoys debating politics and backpack vacations. Erika is involved in many community activities such as Habitat for Humanity and Relay for Life. Danielle is a rising senior at Chattahoochee High school. She enjoys playing lacrosse and other outdoor activities and working with children. Danielle is very involved with Student Council and the National Charity League. “These students will be leaders in their communities in the years ahead, and it’s important to deliver the message that public service is noble and needed in order for our communities and country to grow and prosper” says Ms. Badgett. Teacher chaperone Twilya Toombs, a school counselor and cheerleading coach at Jasper County High School, agrees the nation is in good hands with the emergence of these young leaders. “I know that with the delegates taken on this trip that our future will be okay,” she says. “These delegates were respectful, patient, diverse, intelligent, energetic and competitive. They have changed my outlook on students, and their parents should be applauded.” Teacher chaperone Kirk Shook, a social studies teacher and varsity football coach at North Oconee High School, shares Toombs’ optimism; he is confident the nation will succeed after spending a week with the Youth Tour delegates. “Seeing 103 responsible, mature, caring kids gave me hope for the future again,” he notes. “They were really great kids.” Shook also treasures the solid friendships made among students and chaperones during the week-long trip. “I was able to form relationships with like-minded individuals as well as watch the students grow and mature throughout the week,” he says. Georgia’s youth delegates chose Brandon Ware, sponsored by Walton EMC, as the 2009 representative to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) Youth Leadership Council. As Georgia’s delegate to the national Youth Leadership Council, Ware will attend the YLC Conference in Washington, D.C. in July as well as speak before the GEMC Annual Meeting in November and the 2010 Youth Tour kickoff banquet next June and participate in the NRECA Annual Meeting in Atlanta next March. The 2009 Youth Tour began on June 11 in Atlanta. Before departing for Washington, D.C., the group visited FDR’s Little White House in Warm Springs. After arriving in D.C., they toured the Supreme Court, the U.S. Capitol, the Washington National Cathedral, Mount Vernon, the FDR, Jefferson, Lincoln, Korean and Vietnam Veterans memorials and Arlington National Cemetery. Georgia’s youth delegates also had the chance to gain first-hand insights into today’s most important issues through personal visits with their congressional delegations on Capitol Hill including Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson and U.S. Representatives John Barrow, Sanford Bishop, Paul Broun, Nathan Deal, Jack Kingston, Tom Price and Lynn Westmoreland. For the first time, students were able to see the new Pentagon Memorial dedicated to the memory of the 184 lives lost when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Other highlights included visits to the Hard Rock Café, the Kennedy Center and Toby’s Dinner Theater in Baltimore, Md., where the group attended the play, “Beauty and the Beast.” Since 1964, Georgia’s EMCs have sponsored more than 40,000 high school students to spend a week in Washington, D.C. to see historic monuments and memorials and to watch history unfold on Capitol Hill. Photos from this year’s tour are posted on the GEMC Web site at www.georgiaemc.com. About Sawnee EMC Sawnee Electric Membership Corporation is an electric distribution cooperative headquartered in Cumming, Georgia. Sawnee serves electricity to over 148,000 accounts in seven (7) counties in greater north Georgia. Sawnee’s assets exceed $467 million, with average annual energy sales of three (3) billion kWh and annual revenue of $291 million. With a team of approximately 300 dedicated professionals and over 9,800 miles of distribution facilities, Sawnee stands ready to meet the needs of its member/owners…At Sawnee, We’re More Than Electricity, We’re Service.
Through a statewide network, Georgia’s EMCs provide electricity and related services to four million people, nearly half of Georgia’s population, across 73 percent of the state’s land area. Georgia’s 42 electric membership corporations serve more customers than any other state network of EMCs in the nation. ###
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