Electric Cooperative Youth Tour debuts on the information highway.

While Electric Cooperative Youth Tour participants will leave Washington, D.C., at week’s end, their desire to stay in touch with the program won’t be going anywhere.

To keep program alumni, now numbering some 40,000, as well as prospective participants, parents and other interested parties, posted – no pun intended – on this annual co-op institution, NRECA maintains a Youth Tour Website.

“For the first time, we will be able to provide information to all of our target audiences,” said Steve Uram, NRECA grassroots advocacy representative.

The site, http://www.youthtour.coop, provides one-stop shopping for those wanting to keep up with the Tour. It offers information on the program’s history and purpose – the annual event stems from a 1957 suggestion by then-Texas Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson – as well as informational links for those interested in taking part, and their parents, or those wanting to reconnect with fellow Tour alumni.

“The students that go through this program go on to achieve great things, becoming congressional staff, CEOs and even members of the United States Senate,” Uram noted. “We now have the opportunity to keep in touch with them.”

The Web page also allows access to a trove of still photos and videos chronicling past tours, and testimonials from alumni on what made the experience so worthwhile.

Today's students are web-savvy,” Uram explained. “We needed a ‘youthful’ and fun Web site which would continue to attract today’s great caliber of students to the Youth Tour program.”