Cooperative Living May 2020 - 17

Co-opPeople | by Steven Johnson, Staff Writer
A Unique Perspective
on the Youth Tour
Choptank director has fond memories of
annual cooperative-supported D.C. trip
T
he annual Electric Cooperative
Youth Tour has brought Amy
Ireland Brandt full circle.
In 1991, Amy Ireland was a high
school student at North Caroline High
School in Ridgely, Md., when she
participated in the tour, sponsored
annually by the National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association and local
co-ops. With students from across the
country, she toured Washington, D.C.,
visited attractions and walked the halls
of Congress with elected officials.
Flash forward to 2019. Now Amy
Ireland Brandt, she was elected as a
member of the board of directors of
Choptank Electric Cooperative. And
Brandt is passing her Youth Tour
experiences to her 15-year-old daughter
Macy in the hope that she might follow
in her mother's footsteps.
" I met a lot of
students from other
states so it definitely
broadened my
horizons, " Brandt
says of her Youth
Tour involvement.
" There was a little
bit of independence
associated with it,
too. You were being
chaperoned but you were in a major
metropolitan area without your family. "
Held every June, the Electric
Cooperative Youth Tour traces its
origins to a suggestion then-Sen.
Lyndon B. Johnson made in 1957 -
that co-ops should send high schoolers
to the nation's capital to see " what the
flag stands for and represents. " Iowa
co-ops sent the first delegation in
1958 and the tour now attracts about
1,500 youths annually.
An Eastern Shore native, Brandt
learned about the tour from her father,
co-opliving.com
Amy Ireland Brandt
Charles Ireland, the longtime head
accountant at Choptank, who retired as
a vice president in 2003 after 36 years
of service.
" I filled out a Youth Tour application
and two people from my school went, "
Brandt recalls. While she was familiar
with Washington from family excursions,
Youth Tour enabled her to see some things
outside the mainstream - like a cruise
on the Potomac River and a meeting with
then-U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland
in a Capitol Hill tunnel.
" I think what was interesting was
meeting the politicians and seeing some
of their day-to-day activities. Whether
you're here or in Nebraska, that's not
something that you get to see on TV. I
know you see more of it now, but seeing
just the day-to-day operations of what
happens in D.C. was very enlightening, "
she says.
Notably, pictures from Brandt's Youth
Tour trip reveal a much more formal
dress code from today's event, where
participants stand out in color-coordinated
T-shirts. In 1991, boys dressed in
shirts and slacks and girls wore dresses.
After high school, Brandt graduated
from the University of Maryland's College
Park campus with an accounting degree
and returned to the Eastern Shore, where
she is a partner in Accounting Strategies
Below left, NRECA President Jay A. York
of Minnesota talks to Amy Ireland and
other delegates during the 1991 Electric
Cooperative Youth Tour.
Group LLC. About six years ago, she
and husband Nick moved back on
co-op lines, and her father urged her
to run for a vacant Choptank board of
directors seat.
" Amy, they don't have any
accountants on the board. You would
be really good at this, " she remembers
her dad telling her. Brandt discussed
the possibility with Choptank
executives and decided to pursue the
seat, winning the election in April 2019.
No sooner was she elected than
Brandt found an opportunity to draw on
her Youth Tour experience as Choptank
successfully pursued legislation in the
2020 Maryland legislature, changing
the way it is regulated so it can pursue
a broadband initiative for its members.
" The day-to-day actions of
government became relevant to me
again, " she laughs.
As a director and past Youth Tour
member, Brandt is explaining the value
of the trip to the oldest of her three
daughters, who she hopes will sign
up in two years.
" It'd be nice to make it a generational
thing, " she says. " I got a lot out
of it and I think she would too. " ■
May 2020 | Cooperative Living | 15
PHOTOS COURTESY OF AMY IRELAND BRANDT
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living May 2020

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