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January 2008 Commentary
Teenagers: Seize the day
 Richard G. Biever
Senior Editor
Take advantage of great opportunities while you’re young
In
the movie “Dead Poets Society,” a young prep-school teacher played by
Robin Williams takes his literature class down to a hallway lined with
trophy cases and old team photos. He tells the class to lean in and
stare at the frozen faces of boys from another time.
Those boys,
he says, have now all passed on. They’re “worm food,” he tells his
class, just as we all will someday be. Listen to them, he says, as he
whispers, “carpe diem … carpe diem.
“Seize the day, lads!” he urges his class. “Make your lives extraordinary!”
Youth
passes swiftly. Odd how that’s an age-old theme. You don’t realize just
how fast youth goes by until it’s already gone. The four years of high
school is just a drop of time in the ocean of our lives. But it’s the
best time to seize the many opportunities offered to make lasting and
meaningful memories.
High school juniors around Indiana have one
of those extraordinary opportunities in their laps right now. Each
year, Indiana’s electric cooperatives and their statewide association
select dozens of juniors for an all-expenses paid trip to Washington,
D.C. This year’s trip is June 12-19. Students who have taken it tell us
it has changed their lives.
But students can’t be selected for
the trip if they don’t apply. Now’s the time REMCs and RECs around the
state begin accepting applications.
Richard Todd, a director of
Jasper County REMC, who went on the very first Youth Tour in 1960, and
Katie Day, who went last year, would tell juniors to seize the
opportunity. Both Youth Tour participants are featured in stories on
the next two pages.
Todd, now 64, said he realizes teens these
days are busy doing many things: sports, extracurricular activities,
band, church and community activities. And many hold jobs to earn cash.
He,
too, was involved in all these things while farming with his father.
But he recognized the chance of a lifetime when he saw it 48 years ago.
He had to write an essay for the trip and was chosen to go.
“I
know they’re busy with this and that,” Todd said. “Money has such an
emphasis on kids today … They lay aside the opportunities that are
available to them.”
He noted there’s nothing more important than
participating in youth activities when you’re growing up — because you
grow up too fast. And then those opportunities are gone.
Some
students need to work to help support their family. We realize that is
part of today’s world for many. But we also know there are a lot of
teens who pass on these opportunities because money has already become
the focus of their lives. And that’s too bad. Like youth, these
opportunities are fleeting and only come around once.
Don’t grow
up regretting things you didn’t do. Take time to make memories. Take
advantage of opportunities like the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour.
Apply today. Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.
Here’s a link to a package of articles on Youth Tour
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 1/2/2008
Number of Views: 203
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