NRECA Youth Tour in Washington, D.C. (June 15-21, 2025)
The application timeframe for Youth Tour 2025 has closed. Central Electric is sponsoring up to four high school juniors to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the Rural Electric Youth Tour. South Dakota’s students will team up with more than 1,000 teens from around the country. High school students learn first-hand what it is like to be involved in politics, community development and today’s social issues. Past participants have described this as “a once-in-a-lifetime” experience. Applicants must be high school juniors who permanently reside in Aurora, Brule, Buffalo, Davison, Hanson, Jerauld, Miner or Sanborn County. They do not need to be members to apply.
Youth Tour is funded by all the rural electric cooperatives that sponsor students in the week-long event. The funding provides for each participants transportation, room and board, entertainment and sight-seeing events. Students are asked to provide their own personal spending money for items such as snacks and souvenirs.
Among the sites that are part of the tour are the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Nation Cathedral, the White House, Air and Space Museum, Washington Monument, U.S. Capitol, Ford’s Theater, the Kennedy Center, Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the FDR memorial, the Smithsonian, Iwo Jima Statue, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean war Memorial, Mount Vernon and the National Archives. Typically included on the tour is a breakfast briefing with South Dakota’s Congressional Delegation.
How to Apply
The application timeframe for Youth Tour 2025 has closed. To apply, eligible high school juniors completed an online application that included a written essay. Applicants must be current high school juniors permanently residing within Aurora, Brule, Buffalo, Davison, Hanson, Jerauld, Miner, or Sanborn County of South Dakota. You do not need to be a cooperative member to qualify. For more information about the National Rural Electric Youth Tour, please visit www.youthtour.org.
NOTE: Children and legal dependents of cooperative directors and employees are not eligible.
