Welcome to the Youth Tour Essay Contest of Callaway Electric Cooperative. Our 2021 contest is underway now. If you have questions, please email or call us at 573-642-3326.
What is the Youth Tour?
Each year in January the Cooperative sponsors an essay contest for High School Juniors living in or attending school in Callaway Electric's service area (this includes Fulton, New Bloomfield, North Callaway and South Callaway High School). The top winners of the contest are awarded an all expense paid week long trip to Washington, D.C.
The trip includes visits to monuments, memorials, museums and landmarks. Youth Tour winners also visit their U.S. Representatives and Senators. They travel with a group of over 100 high school juniors from across Missouri who will meet up with more than 1,500 youth from across the U.S. during their week in D.C. It's a trip many have considered the experience of a lifetime!
Our 2020 Youth Tour Winners were Delaney Moser of South Callaway HS, Jacob Moak of Fulton HS and Kaleigh Moore of North Callaway HS. With everything brought about by COVID-19, the 2020 winners were unfortunately unable to travel to DC for the Youth Tour. They were instead awarded a $2000 scholarship toward their freshman year of college.
The remaining finalists of our 2020 contest were each awarded a $500 scholarship. Congratulations to Kendall Dillon, Kasey Dunnavant and Owen Vandeloecht, all of South Callaway HS.
How to participate
Traditionally applicants are asked to write an essay to participate in the Youth Tour. We have recently changed up the format so that applicants can either write an essay, create a video or put together a digital slideshow. Of the entries received, six finalists will be chosen. The finalists are invited to the Cooperative for a written test and interview with a panel of three judges. Three top scoring finalists are awarded all expense paid trips to D.C. The remaining finalists will receive a non-renewable $500 college scholarship to be awarded the first semester of their freshman year of college.
Please note, we realize COVID-19 is still very much impacting planning even into 2021. At this time we plan to move forward with the trip to DC. However, if something happens that we are unable to travel, students will receive a comparable prize and we still encourage them to participate.