Youth Tour: A trip of a lifetime to Washington D.C.

It was an exciting year for our Youth Tour contest as we had a record-break number of entries with 25 essays being submitted! We call this trip our best hidden secret, but I guess the word is out now! It was extremely exciting to read so many very well-written and though tout essays on the chosen topic: What is your one favorite use of electricity.

But in the end our Community Involvement Committee blindly judged each essay and used measurable ratings to determine each essays score. We took the top four and here they are! Congratulations to Rosalia Garcia of Agua Dulce, Paloma Villarreal of Corpus Christi, Amanda Chesser or Karnes, and Hayden Kneizel of Calallen.

In addition to these four NEC delegates, Nueces Electric Cooperative was contacted by Wharton Electric and Jackson Electric who offered two additional spots to NEC Retail members.

Congratulations to Leann Weaver from St. Joseph’s High School in Victoria who will go on the trip thanks to Wharton Electric. Kylie Hicks from Ganado High School will also go on the trip thanks to Jackson Electric!

These extra trips have not ever been a part of our trip, and we don’t expect them to be next year, but we were very please that two extra NEC members were able to go on this trip of a lifetime.

If you have a child who will be a Sophomore or Junior next year, be on the lookout for the call for entries beginning this fall for the 2016 trip.

Ramiro De La Paz Memorial Scholarship Fund

We set the entry requirement a little high this year, but it didn’t phase our pool of highly talented youth as we still received close to 100 scholarship applications.

This year we expanded the program to include two additional $1,000 awards. And good news! We are expanding it again next year to include even a few more.

For 2015, the grand prize $4,000 award recipients are Victoria Wahlen of Calallen and Hattie Powell of Corpus Christi. The $1,000 alternate winners are Deblina Bhattacharya of Calallen, Isabela Bumanlag of Mercedes, Ryan Flemming of Orange Grove, Caitlyn Hornsby of Corpus Christi, Sophia Salinas of Edinburg, and Rachel Sowell of Houston.

All applicants must show proof of exemplary grades and test scores, as well as community and school involvement. It is a tough task to judge these applications. We just have so many youth who truly deserve this award.

We would like to send a special thank you to Texas A&M Kingsville, Texas A&M – Corpus Christi, and to Del Mar College for providing representatives to judge these applications.

If you have a child who will be a high school senior next year, be on the look-out for the scholarship application process to begin in the fall.

Congratulations to all of our 2015 recipients!