Youth Tour

I’m not sure Matthew Dorczuk, a fourth grader at Myrtle Beach Elementary School, needed anyone’s help finding all the things on his Christmas list. But alongside him, as he navigated the aisles of his local Target store, was Andrew Jackson High School’s 215- pound running back Trey Thompson, one of the all-stars playing in the Touchstone Energy Cooperatives Bowl at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium in Myrtle Beach. Thompson, a member of the South squad, teamed up with his North squad counterpart, J.L. Mann High School defensive lineman Jacari Bennett, to help Matthew score some clothes, a drone, a microphone and a Rubik’s cube. Ever since South Carolina’s electric cooperatives began sponsoring one of the South’s oldest high school football all-star games in 2013, the Christmas shopping spree has been part of the bowl week’s festivities. And as much as we enjoy cheering the on-field achievements

Studies have shown that the regret we feel about things we didn’t experience lasts longer and has a deeper impact than the regret over things we’ve actually done. If that’s the case, then it’s one more reason to encourage any high school students you know to apply for Washington Youth Tour and Cooperative Youth Summit. They definitely won’t regret it. Each June, we send four rising seniors to Washington, D.C. for Washington Youth Tour, an all-expenses-paid, once-in- a-lifetime experience. They join dozens of other youth delegates sponsored by South Carolina’s electric cooperatives on a six-day tour of our nation’s capital. The students visit historical and educational sites such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Arlington National Cemetery, the National Mall and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. When they go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the students use pencil and paper to create an etching of