Typically this time each year, Okefenoke REMC is preparing to select delegates to represent the co-op as part of the National Washington Youth Tour Leadership Experience, with a week-long trip to Washington, D.C. COVID-19 sidelined last year’s trip, and has cancelled it again for 2021. OREMC has decided to take a different approach.

High school juniors attending schools in OREMC’s eight county service area—Brantley, Camden, Charlton, Glynn, Ware and Wayne counties in Georgia, and Baker and Nassau counties in Florida—are invited to apply for the 2021 OREMC Youth Tour. Six students will be selected to participate in a cultural heritage and history tour from June 14-18. Planned activities for the trip include:

• team building through a tree-top trek at Callaway Gardens,
• learning the roots of rural electrification by visiting Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia,
• exploring Stone Mountain,
• sites, sounds, museums and monuments of Atlanta,
• connecting with legislative representatives and tour of the Georgia State Capitol
• Atlanta Braves vs. Boston Red Sox baseball game  
• Providence Canyon

“While we understand the reasons for cancelling the national Youth Tour experience again this year, we felt we had a unique opportunity to provide a similar trip with a localized perspective,” explains Dewayne Johns, OREMC Member Service Representative. “Georgia is the birthplace of rural electrification. How fortunate we are to be able to explore the roots of our shared cooperative experience with the next generation, as well as better understand government in action from those currently serving. A trip like this also exposes students to other natural wonders, historic and notable sites around the state, making history more “real” and not simply pictures in a book or something they have Googled.”

Youth Tour information and the application are available online at oremc.com/youth-tour or you can request a copy at one of OREMC’s offices in Nahunta, Kingsland and Hilliard, Florida. Completed applications must submitted electronically, emailed, mailed or delivered to one of our OREMC offices by Friday, March 26, 2021. COVID-19 testing and adherence to all recommended safety protocols will be required to participate.

For more information or questions about the OREMC Youth Tour, please contact Member Services Representative Dewayne Johns at 800-262-5131 ext. 1143 or via email at youthprograms@oremc.com.