Hundreds Visit Capital for 2008 Youth Tour
By Derrill Holly

Nearly 1,500 young consumer-members from 44 states spent a week in the nation’s capital as part of NRECA’s Youth Tour 2008. While they spent time touring memorials, museums and monuments, they also talked a lot about issues critical to their futures.

Youth Tour participants were among the first co-op consumer-members urged to use cellular phone text messaging to encourage their friends and families to learn more about the “Our Energy, Our Future” campaign launched earlier this year.

“We’ve encouraged them to discuss the campaign with their friends because these are issues that will affect their communities and their generation,” said Steve Uram, NRECA’s legislative affairs advisor.

NRECA is using the cellular telephone short code FUTURE (388873) to support the campaign. Texting the key word “energy” triggers an immediate response from the campaign with a website address where additional information is available.

The technology is designed to appeal to those who’ve embraced text-messaging technology, particularly young people. During a June 16 Youth Day rally, Randy Dwyer, NRECA’s director of grassroots advocacy, held up a USA Today headline stating “Utilities Raising Price of Power,” to emphasize that co-op consumer-members as well as customers of investor-owned and municipal utilities will pay more for electricity in the years ahead, in part due to rising energy costs.

“Your energy is your future,” Dwyer said, stressing the importance of elected officials hearing their constituents’ views on climate change and energy research and development. “Consumers have got to do a good job on talking about energy themselves,” said Dwyer, reminding participants that their elected representatives view them as future voters. “Even if you can‘t vote this year, your voice still counts,” he said.

The youth visited with their congressional representatives and key staffers. Many used the visits to discuss issues raised by the campaign.

More than 183,000 e-mail messages supporting the campaign’s themes have been directed to members of Congress since February.

It is backed by hundreds of distribution co-ops, G&Ts and statewide associations.

“People in Congress have to make some hard decisions about the energy the country needs,” said Rachel Wright, 16, a Youth Tour participant representing Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative, Lihue, Hawaii.

Reprinted with permission from the June 20, 2008 issue of Electric Co-op Today © National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.