Elk Lake senior selected for national leadership council
Area students represent Claverack on Youth Tour

WYSOX – Eight area high school students represented Claverack Rural Electric Cooperative on the 2006 Rural Electric Youth Tour held in Washington, D.C., in June.

The Youth Tour, organized annually by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association since the 1960s, brings more than 1,400 students from around the country to the nation’s capital for one week each June. Participating students will be entering their senior year in high school in the fall.

Claverack holds a contest to select the student delegates it will sponsor for the all-expenses-paid trip.

Chosen on the basis on an application, essay and extracurricular activities, the following students represented Claverack on the 2006 Youth Tour: Julianne Spadine, daughter of Yvonne and Samuel Spadine of Springville RR 1, a student at Elk Lake High School; Pamela Mechling, daughter of James and Nancy Mechling of Towanda, Towanda Area High School; Katie Steele, daughter of Earl W. Steele Jr. and Karen R. Steele of Wysox RR2, Northeast Bradford High School; Rebecca Manney, daughter of Laurie W. Manney and the late Craig Manney of Stevensville, Wyalusing Valley High School; Stacy Caryl Matson, daughter of Carl and Jennifer Matson of Wyalusing RR 3, Wyalusing Valley High School; Robbie Miller, son of Scott and Marilyn Miller of Dushore RR 2, Wyalusing Valley High School; Sylvia Rabago, daughter of Jude and Edith Rabago of Wyalusing RR 3, Wyalusing Valley High School; and Nathan Thompson, son of Doug and Peg Thompson of Sugar Run RR 1, Wyalusing Valley High School.

During Youth Tour, Claverack student delegate Julianne Spadine was selected to represent Pennsylvania on the national Youth Leadership Council as a result of her selection as the state’s Outstanding Student Delegate. There were approximately 90 Youth Tour participants from 13 Pennsylvania cooperatives vying for the honor.

As the Youth Leadership Council’s state representative, Spadine will have the opportunity to attend the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s national conference in Las Vegas in February 2007, as well as the weeklong Youth Leadership Council seminar in Washington, D.C.

Spadine, who will be entering her senior year at Elk Lake High School this fall, was selected for the honor based on an application and an interview conducted during Youth Tour, June 11-16. Each state represented at Youth Tour selects one student representative for the Youth Leadership Council.

As part of the Pennsylvania delegation, Claverack’s Youth Tour students visited landmarks including the World War II, Korean, and Vietnam memorials, Jefferson and Washington monuments, Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorials, the National Mall, Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo, the National Republican Club of Capitol Hill and the International Spy Museum, where students had the chance to assume a spy identity.

Visits with U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood and Sen. Rick Santorum, an evening boat cruise on the Potomac River, a tour of Mt. Vernon and a live theatrical production at the Kennedy Center rounded out the itinerary.

A member-owned, non-profit utility, Claverack Rural Electric Cooperative, with headquarters in Wysox, provides electricity to more than 17,700 consumer-members in Bradford, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Tioga, Lycoming, Sullivan, Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.

* * * * *