March 9, 2023: Claxton High School (CHS) juniors, Mollie Lane, Kaelyn Smith, and Damonae Wharton, have been named three of the four winners of this year’s Canoochee Electric Membership Corporation (CEMC) Washington Youth Tour Essay Contest. CEMC, located in Reidsville, GA, offers the competition to high school juniors in schools in their service area: Bryan County High School, Claxton High School, Faith Baptist Christian School, Long County High School, Pinewood Christian Academy, and Tattnall County High School.
Joe Sikes, CEMC Communications Specialist, visited CHS on January 19 to present information about the Washington Youth Tour to CHS juniors. The CHS ELA department helped host the visit and encouraged students to participate.
Each year, this program, initiated by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, gives over 1,400 students from across the United States the opportunity to be part of this experience. Lane, Smith, and Wharton follow in the footsteps of Estrella Salas-Mendoza and Eli Waters, Miriam Esquivel, and Angelique McRae, former CHS Washington Youth Tour winners in 2022, 2018, and 2019, respectively.
This year, students competing in the CEMC contest again had a choice of topics: writing about the Rural Electrification Act, imagining life without electricity, or discussing a power plant that would meet the growing demands of electricity. After being selected as three of the ten finalists for the essay portion of the competition, Lane, Smith, and Wharton competed in an interview round before being declared winners and earning spots in this incredible opportunity.
In June, Lane, Smith, and Wharton will travel to Atlanta to catch a plane to Washington, DC to tour our nation's capital. This is an all-expense-paid seven-day trip, compliments of CEMC and in recognition of Lane, Smith, and Wharton’s writing and interview performances. Lane, Smith, and Wharton will join students from across America to tour our nation’s capital, learn more about history and how the cooperative business model works, develop leadership skills, and create long-lasting friendships with students from across the country.
Dr. Paul Mizell, principal of CHS, stated, “We are very proud and excited for these girls to represent Claxton High School and Evans County on the CEMC Washington Youth Tour. This is the chance of a lifetime for them to be able to tour Washington and interact with students from across the nation, and we cannot wait for them to share their experiences with us when they return!”