Front: Kara Slaybaugh of Galva and Stephanie Leigh Uhl Hamman of Hinton, Back: Emily Morrison of Le Mars and Derek Hofland of Hartley.

Stephanie Leigh Uhl Hamman of Hinton, Derek Hofland of Hartley, Emily Morrison of Le Mars and Kara Slaybaugh of Galva represented North West Rural Electric Cooperative as part of a group of 40 Iowa high schools juniors and seniors representing 24 Iowa electric cooperatives on the 2010 Iowa Electric Cooperatives’ Annual Youth Tour of Washington, D.C.

This was the 53rd annual youth tour event organized by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which had record attendance of 1,494 including Iowa’s 40 students that participated in the June 12-17 gathering.

All 40 Iowa students met as a group with Iowa Sens. Grassley and Harkin, in addition to breaking into groups to meet with the representative for each of their specific districts in the U.S. House of Representatives. Students asked the senators and representatives questions about the nation’s worst ever oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a struggling economy, concerns about the nation’s debt which some economists have said is unsustainable, nutrition at public schools and quality of education.

Answers and solutions about the issues varied among the congressional delegation, but there was a common thread on energy and environmental policies of doing what’s best for the environment without harming the economy, which was similar to what students heard last year.

In addition to meeting with the members of Congress that serve them, students also had time to explore the memorials, monuments and other attractions of the nation’s capital during their visit paid for by electric co-ops that participate in the program. During the tour, the students saw and visited the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Iwo Jima Monument, the National Archives, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Museum of Art, the Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, the Washington National Cathedral, Mount Vernon, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, Capitol Hill and the White House.