Okay, well, you know how I am....if I see something interesting happening, I'm going to watch it, with the intent of at least thinking about writing something about it. Because I'm a storyteller; I'm always searching for stories.
Went to the 50 Year Oklahoma Youth Tour Reunion yesterday in Oklahoma City, naturally scribbling notes on my program, thinking about possibly writing a story on it and seeing if Oklahoma Living magazine would run it. Well, Lorene saw me jotting keywords down and asked if I would write a blog post about the experience for all of our people who couldn't come, so they'd get an idea of what it was like.
So, there's the explanation for the reason behind this post.
Youth Tour began, or at least the idea of it, in a 1957 Lyndon B. Johnson speech, he was talking about how young people needed to see up-close how the government worked, for the ordinary, hard-working, rural-area youth a chance to witness all the country's wonderful history firsthand. It took several years to get organized and everything, but in 1964 twelve states sent students on the inaugural "Youth Tour". Oklahoma was one of those twelve states on that ten-day trip to Washington, D.C., taking about 36 high school juniors. And from that year to this, thousands of kids have gotten to be a part of the experience of a lifetime.
Not just anyone gets to go; for the first thing. The national Youth Tour is organized by the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association, each state-level cooperative organization sends a group made up of specially-chosen high school juniors from their member co-ops. The exact nomination process varies from co-op to co-op, but it can involve anything from an essay or a letter to a Senator up to a fifty-question test, speech competition and in-depth interview. So it's the best of the best, it's not just any group of randomly-chosen group of teenagers sent across the country on an all-expenses-paid trip. It's really amazing, when you stop and think about it. Not just how powerful it is for those involved; but the fact that co-ops, which are not run for profit,, but for the betterment of the community, will yearly invest in students and their futures.
I was a part of the 72 students in 2011 to go on the trip, and it was amazing. We had an amazing time, met a ton of great people; made crazy memories, got to see wonderful things that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
Well, we got back, and senior year was finished, all the terrifying-ness of it, we had each other's backs, knew what that chaos was like. Same thing with freshman year of college. From Day 1, though, we knew we "HAD" to have a reunion. And actually, several halfhearted attempts were thrown out there, they just never quite worked out. Anyway, this year marked the 50th anniversary, and so Spike Mama the director thought it would be a fantastic plan to have an all-alumni reunion. (Cue everyone involved getting super excited.)
The day finally came yesterday, and so from all over the state (and country) former YT were on their way back to where it all started; OKC. It was held at a Sheraton Hotel; fancy place. There was a big conference room set up with tables organized by year, so from all over the years people reconnected with those from their trips. Photos from across the decades were on display, as were Youth Tour T-shirts.
There weren't that many from our year, which was a bit disappointing to all of us assembled. But anyway, it was awesome to get to see Allison, Amanda A., Caleb, Danielle, Jose, Juliana and Lorene again. Between the eight of us, we represented five different colleges attended.
Spike Mama began the event with a short introductory speech, recognizing several people like Rodney and Joe, our bus drivers; a former Miss Oklahoma, and the former lieutenant governor. She told a couple entertaining stories, such as the 2001 group gave her the "Spike Mama" nickname, two of those kids ended up getting married. Another guy from that year, who was supposed to tell his version of one of the most entertaining YT stories, that of "The Big-Ass Knife", couldn't make it at the last minute. (And that really is the title...) Spike Mama, known to some people who don't her very well as Jennifer, actually ended up meeting her husband Ben because of YT.
The first speaker was the previous CEO of the state-level co-op, who was instrumental in growing it from a possible threat of extinction into an institution. He relayed much of the history of the trip; how he became involved with co-ops and YT, and just the inspirational qualities of the trip. It was really good. I know maybe doesn't sound that exciting, but it was very good.
After him came the first Democratic female Lt. Gov. in state history; she'd gone as a chaperone in 1999. She had only been to D.C. as a high school junior once before; so she could see all the monuments and memorials and things with a kid's eyes, all that history is just awe-inspiring that one encounters. We've stood where George Washington used to live. We saw the Lincoln Memorial. A ton of the stuff from Night at the Museum? We've actually seen those things. She shared a quote from Franklin Roosevelt, originator of the Rural Electrical Association, the father of co-ops, sort of. The quote went like this: "We cannot prepare the future for our children, but we can prepare children for the future." That's pretty much the guiding principle behind Youth Tour.
Next in line to give a speech was a boy from 2003 now working in politics, he shared a couple of the moments that stood out the most to him, meeting Hilary Clinton, for one. That was quite the experience for a small-town Republican farm boy, he laughed. The cooperatives are an example of politics really working, doing something good; the REA literally changed millions of lives by introducing electricity to the country. You can learn so many life lessons from YT, it's amazing.
A girl from 2006 that later went on to become Miss Oklahoma came next, some of her first words were that it was "an incredible experience". Her brother had gone before her, and he loved it. Then she got to go two years later, one of the memories she shared was climbing the White House fence(not encouraged, by the way.) The speech contest later proved to be important for her later on. And this talk was given with a broken wrist from a horseback mishap last week and while the lights were flickering on and off.
A girl from 2012 sang a few songs after that, she was all right. She began with something by Elvis, then an old cowboy song with yodeling. Then she picked up a guitar and performed a song she'd written after visiting the Pentagon, inspired by the events of 9/11, before ending with "God Bless the USA".
An awesome video was then watched, pictures from then stretching up into now, with snatches of music fitting that time period. That was really neat.
Group pictures by co-op came next, all the assembled people who came broke up into whichever cooperative they'd gone on the trip with.
For the next two hours, we ate snacks and mingled at the reception.
We took a lot of pictures; it'd been several years since we'd seen each other. And of course we had to compare notes on colleges, get caught up on majors, that sort of thing. And there was lots of laughter, from memories of stories and random hysterical comments. And there were photobooths to take more pictures in, it was a good time.
*Examples of funny statements - (Lorene explaining that she was working a summer job as a counselor at a camp for people with special-needs north of Dallas) Jose - Oh, well of course I know where Dallas is. So if it's near Denton, yeah, I know where it'd be. Actually, I'll be driving through there next week on the way to Mexico."
Somebody - "Why you goin' to Mexico?"
Jose - "Visiting family for about a month."
Lorene - "....Are you Mexican????" (Hysterical laughter from all of us)
The Rest of Us - "His name is Jose..."
Or this, talking about majors: "Clay's going to UCO, isn't he?"
"Yep, that's right."
(To Juliana at the same time) "What major?"
"Fashion Merchandising."
"'Fashion Merchandising'? Really? I mean...."
Juliana - "No...not Clay! ME! He's studying...something else. Nursing, I think."
"Yeah, nursing, that's right."
"Okay...I was thinking...."
And later, Juliana was answering a question on how she liked her school in Ohio: "Well, it's all right, except for being cold. And windy. And cold."
Mom and Amy were at the zoo, seeing elephants and rhinos. Zoos are neat places.
It was a good time.
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