By Josh P. Crotzer
As she walked through the U.S. Holocaust Museum, Karla Chinchilla Giron was moved by the simple, haunting exhibit of thousands of shoes piled together in a disordered heap. She also felt a renewed sense of purpose.
“Seeing the shoes of victims and pictures of the families, it was heartbreaking,” says Chinchilla Giron, a rising senior at Chesterfield High. “It showed me how important journalism is because many people don’t know what’s happening in the world. It made me want to tell these stories even more.”
Chinchilla Giron’s experience at the museum was part of Washington Youth Tour, a five-day, all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s capital and surrounding landmarks in June. She, along with Allison Lloyd from Chesterfield High and Mason Parker and A.D. Catoe from Andrew Jackson High, were sponsored on the trip by Lynches River Electric Cooperative. They joined 67 other high school students representing South Carolina’s electric cooperatives. Lynches River Electric employee Heidi Louallen served as a chaperone for the trip.
“We studied the Holocaust in school, but seeing it firsthand was powerful,” Parker says. “This trip showed me how important it is to learn new things and experience life beyond South Carolina.”
South Carolina’s students also toured George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Fort McHenry in Baltimore and the Smithsonian museums in Washington. The students also viewed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and visited the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
In addition to historic and educational sites, the students visited congressional off ices and toured the U.S. Capitol. There, U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott spent time talking with the students on the Capitol steps.
“It’s been the best experience, meeting new people, seeing new things and stepping outside my comfort zone,” Lloyd says. “Visiting the Capitol made me realize I really want to go into law and politics.”
The trip was also an opportunity for the students to interact with peers from other parts of South Carolina and the 43 other state delegations that converged on Washington that week. The Youth Tourists traded state pins with one another—South Carolina’s pins depicting the notorious Lizard Man were popular—and came together for Youth Day, where they heard from national cooperative leaders and inspirational speakers.
