Makayla-Jade Mendez from Pascagoula High School, Riley Tingle from Perry Central High School, and Vicky Vo from St. Martin High School represented Singing River Electric at the Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi’s 2024 Cooperative Leaders Workshop held February 21-23 in Jackson, Miss.
While visiting Jackson with a total of 85 students from around the state, these young leaders networked with their peers through a get acquainted session and town hall meeting, participated in team-building exercises led by Elyon Outreach Ministries, and enjoyed an exciting evening with magician Dorian LaChance. The students also shared breakfast with senators and representatives from their districts, visited the Senate and House floors inside the Mississippi State Capitol, were addressed by Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann during lunch at Old Capitol Inn, and listened to remarks from Secretary of State Michael Watson.
In June, the students will travel to Washington, D.C. for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Youth Tour to visit our nation’s historic landmarks and meet with Mississippi’s senators and representatives.
“Makayla-Jade, Riley, and Vicky are already leaders at their local high schools. This program helps develop their leadership skills and provide ways to interact with like-minded students from Mississippi and across our nation,” said Singing River Electric General Manager and CEO Brian Hughey.
To qualify for Singing River Electric’s program, students who are juniors are required to have a 3.0 grade point average, be involved in extra-curricular activities, and reside in Singing River Electric’s service area. After being selected as their school’s nominee, the students participate in a one-day Cooperative University and interviews at the cooperative’s Lucedale office; a panel of judges selects three students to attend the two trips.
Singing River Electric has an 85-year heritage of providing safe, reliable, and affordable electricity to our local communities where we call home. SRE serves nearly 80,000 meters across 7,783 miles of power lines in seven counties in Mississippi (Jackson, George, Greene, Perry, Stone, Wayne and Harrison) and two counties in Alabama (Mobile and Washington). The electric distribution cooperative works with Cooperative Energy to provide its members a diverse mix of generation resources including five small-scale solar sites locally and a 540-acre solar site in Lamar County. For more information, follow our conversations on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.