Northview Student Elected State Representative For National Council

June 27, 2008

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Olivia Bryan of Bratt was recently chosen as Florida’s only representative on the national Youth Leadership Council while on a trip to Washington, D.C.

The Youth Leadership Council (YLC) is a joint effort of local electric co-ops, statewide cooperative associations and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Olivia attended the 2008 Youth Tour in Washington as a representative of Escambia River Electric Cooperative, one of about 1,500 high school students visiting the nation’s capital as representatives of their rural electric cooperative.

Each state is entitled to have one representative on the Youth Leadership Council. The YLC is designed to provide participants with stronger leadership skills, presentation skills and a broader understanding of rural electric cooperatives.

Students competing for their state’s spot on the Youth Leadership Council had to face a panel of judges and explain their goals and interests, academic standing and past accomplishments. Then each contestant was given six minutes to prepare a speech on a given topic and present it to the judges and fellow youth tour delegates.

The speech had to be address how youth could cause state at the national, state and local levels.

“In my speech, I focused on if we wanted to cause a change, we had to be the change” Olivia told NorthEscambia.com. “There was not a lot of time to prepare. I was surprised they liked my speech the best because some of the others were really good.”

Now that she is on the Youth Leadership Council, Olivia will head back to Washington for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Youth Leadership Conference in July for leadership training. And then she will attend to the NRECA Annual Meeting in New Orleans in February of 2009. At the July meeting, one student will be chosen as the national Youth Leadership Conference Spokesperson and will speak to the thousands at the NRECA Annual Meeting.

“I’m excited to see what kinds of doors this may open for me,” Bryan said. “I’m also interested to see what the leadership training in Washington will have to offer.”

While in Washington as EREC’s representative on the Youth Tour, Olivia visited the U.S. Capital where she met with Florida Congressman Jeff Miller on the Capital steps. She was also able to visit most of the national memorials, including the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial.

She was most impressed with the Lincoln Memorial, Olivia said. “It was huge. I never realized the scale of it.”

Olivia is the daughter of Robert and Rebecca Ryan of Bratt. She will be senior this fall at Northview High School.

For more photos from Olivia Bryan’s Washington trip, click here.

Pictured above: Northview student Olivia Bryan on the steps on the U.S. Capital in Washington. Pictured below: Olivia (turned sideways in the black dress) talks with Florida Congressman Jeff Miller on the Capital steps. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com.

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