Southwest Rural Electric Association opened their 2022 Youth Tour Essay & Speech Contest for high school juniors. Students can submit essays and applications until December 1, 2021 online at SWRE.com/YouthTour. The contest is open to high school juniors living or attending school in Altus (OK), Blair (OK), Chillicothe (TX), Crowell (TX), Electra (TX), Frederick (OK), Harrold (TX), Navajo (OK), Northside (TX), Snyder (OK), Tipton (OK) and Vernon (TX).

One winner from Oklahoma and one from Texas will be selected and will win a week-long, all-expenses paid trip on the Youth Tour in Washington D.C. in June 2022. Runner-ups (one from Oklahoma and one from Texas) will win entry to the Oklahoma Association-Electric Cooperative’s Leadership Summit in March 2022 and a scholarship for attending. All finalists will receive a $250 cash prize after delivering their speeches and teachers will receive a $100 classroom donation for each finalist from their class that delivers a speech.

The 2022 essay topic is: “If you were to start a cooperative, what kind would it be and what would it offer? How would the new cooperative positively impact your community?” Essays need to be 750-words, doubled-spaced and entered with a parent or guardian signature on the entry form. A physical entry form with all contest rules and the parent or guardian signature can be found here.

Southwest Rural Electric Association is asking teachers who make the Youth Tour Essay a classroom assignment to choose and submit their class’s top 5 essays for judging in order to make the contest more competitive. There is a designated “teacher submission” section on the application where teachers can upload their class essays and entry forms together. Students who submit outside of a class assignment are welcome to apply as usual. 

If a teacher or student is not able to submit applications online or has questions about the contest, Southwest Rural Electric Association communications specialist Rebecca Chambless is available to help. She can be reached by phone at (580) 667-4413 or email rchambless@swre.com.