Learning Friendship and Fun 

2026 Montgomery Youth Tour offers attendees important lessons, new connections

South Alabama Electric Cooperative’s delegates attending the 2026 Montgomery Youth Tour learned a lot about leadership, communication, history, government and how electric cooperatives serve communities.

And they had fun while learning. “We’ve talked a lot about leadership and about public speaking,” says Sarah Sanders, 16, a student at Pike Liberal Arts School. “There’s been so many fun activities with each of the speakers. We learned how to be attentive with each other and how our body language says a lot about how we present ourselves to people.”

The Montgomery Youth Tour is an annual event bringing high school juniors from around the state to the Alabama capital. Selected by local electric cooperatives, the students visit historic sites, museums, government buildings and participate in team-building and leadership activities. The statewide event is sponsored by the Alabama Rural Electric Association of Cooperatives as well as the local co-ops.

In June, electric cooperatives will send students to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Washington, D.C., Youth Tour to visit the nation’s capital.

Sanders and Hayden Duncan, 17, will represent SAEC during the 2026 Washing – ton Youth Tour.

Duncan, who attends Zion Chapel High School, says she was sad to see the Mont – gomery Youth Tour end. Those in the SAEC group, she says, managed to become friends in just three days.

“We’ve made sure to send all of our pictures to each other, and I feel like we’ll definitely keep in touch,” Duncan says.

Being around people she doesn’t know can be a bit intimidating for Duncan, but she realized she likely wasn’t the only Youth Tour attendee who felt that way and decided to just be herself.

“It was kind of like everyone wanted to get to know everybody, and there was no fear,”

Duncan says. “I had nothing to be afraid of — everyone’s here for the same things, and we just all want to get to know each other.” Duncan says she got a lot from the experience, gaining skills and tools to help her in life and at school. One guest speaker used an interactive beach ball game to teach attendees about communicating and working together to reach a goal — in this instance, keeping a beach ball in the air, a task that wasn’t as easy as it looked until those involved started talking to each other.

“You have to talk to people,” Duncan says. “You have to be OK to hear an opinion other than your own and work with people.”

Sanders says the tips on public speak – ing, which she considers one of her weaknesses, really hit home for her. Like Duncan, Sanders says she realized delegates were all there to learn.

“I have met so many new friends like from places all over that I would have never known about before this trip,” Sanders says. “And, honestly, it’s such a rewarding experience.”

Along with the speakers and leadership activities, Youth Tour attendees visited the Alabama Statehouse as well as sites like the historic Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor from 1954-60.

Both Duncan and Sanders say their eyes were opened by the trip to The Legacy Museum, which tracks the country’s history from the days of slavery to racial lynchings, Civil Rights and racial bias.

They say the museum’s exhibits taught the students history they had not learned in school.

“It was really an eye-opening experience, and a tour I went through slowly and just read as much as I could,” Sanders says.

The students are excited to visit Wash – ington, D.C., in June and thrilled to travel together for the event that draws students from around the country. Duncan and Sanders sat with each other on the bus ride from Troy to Montgomery and got to know each other better.

Duncan says during the state trip she tried not to think about the Washington Youth Tour but just focus on the Mont – gomery trip and being herself.

“It kind of just helped me realize as long as you’re yourself, that’s all people want, and that will get you a lot further in life,” Duncan says.