Janet Kervin grew up hearing stories of how electric cooperatives brought power to farms and homes.

The youngest of six children, Kervin’s father was a farmer and her mother was a homemaker and nurse. Her parents had her late in their life together — her father was born in 1911 and her mother in 1922. They knew firsthand how hard things were before electricity.

“Electricity was always revered in our household because of their life experiences without it,” Kervin says. “We were frugal with its use and were constantly reminded how life was without it.”

Powering possibilities

The newest member of the South Alabama Electric Cooperative’s Board of Trustees, Kervin says the Rural Electrification Act was the most life-changing improvement the U.S. government ever made for the daily lives of rural citizens.

“Without the electric cooperatives it created, we are unable to have industries and businesses that create jobs, which produce tax revenues that pay for protection, healthcare, schools and the most basic necessities,” she says. “Our lives are comfortable and enriched because of the enjoyment of electricity. The member ownership of the cooperatives is a good business model to ensure longevity of a healthy cooperative that can meet the growing needs of our communities.”

Gaining experience

Kervin grew up in Henry County between Headland and Abbeville, graduating from Abbeville Christian Academy.

She then attended Troy University, earning her master’s in business administration while working as a graduate assistant in Troy’s Sorrell College of Business. Her first full-time job as administrative assistant for the college’s dean involved helping international students meet admission requirements for the MBA program.

Later, Kervin worked as a counselor for Troy’s business college, providing counseling and training for new and existing business owners in areas like business planning, understanding lending, marketing and government contracting. Her work was part of a network of university-based Small Business Development Centers in Alabama and throughout the U.S. She retired after 25 years.

Kervin also did contracted research, including economic impact studies, image analyses and public opinion polls for political candidates, universities, hospitals and businesses.

Kervin and her husband, Jeff, have been married for 32 years. They have a son, Joel. She serves as secretary for Oak Grove Methodist Church. When she has spare time, her interests focus on family and friends.

“I enjoy daily Bible study, having meals with my family and friends, reading good books, crocheting, trying to play golf and walking our dogs, Teddy and Pepper,” she says.

Filling the District 5 SAEC board seat once held by her father-in-law is an honor, she says.

Delaney Kervin was headmaster at Pike Liberal Arts School for nearly 30 years and served on the SAEC board for more than three decades. He loved both roles and took them seriously, she says.

“I pray I can make Mr. Kervin proud of how I represent District 5,” she says. “I am committed to serving all the members of SAEC and supporting what is in the best interest of the cooperative’s members.”

Students find new friends, inspiration and fun on Washington Youth Tour

There were some key moments during the 2026 Youth Tour in Washington, D.C., that left lasting impressions on Hayden Duncan and Sarah Sanders.

They both loved the beauty and history of Mount Vernon, the historic home of George Washington. They found the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum moving and educational. The two say the trip taught them more than they expected to learn.

“What goes on behind the scenes that we really don’t get to see other than on the news,” Duncan says.

Sanders, 16, and Duncan, 17, represented South Alabama Electric Cooperative during the Washington Youth Tour, visiting the nation’s capital with 1,700 delegates from 44 states. Sanders is a student at Pike Liberal Arts School, while Duncan attends Zion Chapel High School.

Both delegates say they would recommend Youth Tour to anyone considering it.

The Washington Youth Tour is an annual event sponsored by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Cooperatives from around the country send delegates to the nation’s capital to learn about the country’s history, government and how cooperatives play a role.

“The experience, I honestly just think, has given me so much more confidence, getting out there and meeting new people,” Sanders says.

The trip included visits to popular memorials and monuments including the Jefferson Memorial, the U.S. Capitol and the World War II Memorial. The students spent a day at the Smithsonian Institution. They clowned around in a replica of the Oval Office at the People’s House, a White House history museum. They listened as Alabama Sen. Katie Britt described her desire to serve and how she balances her family life with elected office.

And they feel like they made connections, meeting peers from all over the country and making new friends along the way.

Both Sanders and Duncan want to study law and maybe one day become lobbyists. Sanders became interested after observing election coverage, but she didn’t know how attainable the goal was. Duncan says the Youth Tour is responsible for her interest in that area. It just so happened that one of their Alabama chaperones is a lobbyist for the Alabama Rural Electric Association.

“That was super cool to be able to talk to her about her experiences and how she got to where she was,” Sanders says. “It has made me more confident in my path, continuing to college and everything.”

Duncan says the Washington trip inspired her.

“It definitely made me feel like this might be something I want to do and make a difference on my own,” she says. “I definitely would love to go into the law, maybe be a lawyer or something like that. This is a whole new door, and there’s so many different things you can do with this.”

There were 61 delegates from Alabama, and Sanders and Duncan say they all grew really close in the short timeframe of the trip.

While the arrival of state delegates is staggered during the week, all the states were represented during a party held for delegates.

“We were meeting people from all over the country, which isn’t something that you get to do every day,” Sanders says.

When August rolls around, the spring gardening bug gives way to the sweltering heat in Alabama, and our gardens start to play out until cooler times arrive.

Sadly for my grandsons, school will be starting back. The upside to that is football will be coming soon. We actually referred to those practices as 2-a-days with only one water break — that’s one water break per practice. Football in August is a young person’s game.

September can be as hot as August, but hopefully cooler times will be arriving soon.

I would like to discuss electric bills — not only for summer months but all year. Electric bills are driven by weather. After reading that comment, I bet you are thinking, “Duh! Who is this guy?” Let me explain.

Managing your electric bill is not like it was 20 years ago. We had no devices back then. All of our equipment is linked to give you information either through our website or mobile app. We even have the tools in-house to help you track your daily use and calculate the average daily use on your bill. This is on all your accounts, not just one. This tool gives you ownership of the decisions you make regarding electricity use.

Remember the garden statement at the beginning of this column? Say you plant this huge garden and have a bountiful harvest, so you and your wife go out and buy two large chest freezers for the garage. If you survive planting this huge garden with your wife, you will be able to enjoy the harvest later, but you will also use more electricity. With SAEC’s digital tools, you can track your electric use increase from the additional appliances.

Likewise, if you come in from the garden hot and sweaty and adjust your thermostat to cool off, our tools will show you how that action affects your power use and your bill.

Too many times members tell our member service representatives, “There is no way that I use that much electricity.” I like to call that “electricity sticker shock.” Our electricity is metered by an electronic device that shows the energy use by the member. The meter equipment failure rate is very low. Now, there are some other issues that can occur on the member side of the meter, but that’s not my focus today.

Sometimes high electric bill complaints are aired on Facebook, stating the electric company keeps increasing our electric rates, and people will jump on that bandwagon. We do not have a lot of that from our members. I cannot speak for other utilities, but at your cooperative, the last rate adjustment was in 2015. In 2026, SAEC changed its power cost adjustment by $5 per 1,000 kilowatt-hours. The average member uses approximately 1,200 kWh per month. On the average member’s bill, this change is $6 per month, so that’s not going to be the cause of your high utility bill.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m just not a numbers person?” It is a totally misleading statement. We all do numbers in some form. If you don’t do numbers, you will not function in this world. That’s why they teach math in school. But please do not let the numbers fear stop you. Our team members will walk you through the numbers process.

How has your cooperative provided its members stable rates over the past 11 years? It is through what I call organic growth. That means our base membership — both residential and large commercial accounts — is using more electricity. Growth in our overall membership helps, too. Now, we have all experienced high cost increases over the past five to six years, but not in your cooperative’s electricity rates.

I would like to tip my hat to the board of trustees for South Alabama for their insights into our budgeting process and allowing the cooperative management team to control the costs that make up your rates each year.

My commitment to you is always to seek out ways to improve our reliability and control costs so electricity rates can remain stable. Overall, we need to do those functions in a very safe manner for our employees and our members. Please contact our member service representatives on how you can monitor your electric usage and avoid the electric sticker shock.

Until next month, stay cool.

This Fourth of July, our country’s Great Experiment will be 250 years old.

The Declaration of Independence was accepted and signed by a group of men we call Founding Fathers. These men knew the cost of signing this document and risked their lives, reputations, wealth and families’ safety.

The statement in the Declaration that sets the standard for this experiment is as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Samuel Adams was one of the men who signed the Declaration. Sadly, Adams is probably better known today for beer even though he was involved in organizing resistance to the British rule in Boston. Adams helped create the Sons of Liberty, a political organization active in the 13 American colonies. Secret meetings were held in the basement of the Green Dragon Tavern, which became known by historians as the headquarters of the Revolution. The Boston Tea Party was planned at this tavern. Adams and friends probably drank beer and ale while planning the Boston Tea Party, but he was not a brewmaster.

The British viewed him as one of the most dangerous revolutionaries in America. He could have been arrested or executed for treason. Knowing that possible outcome, I would have had a beer or two myself if I had been in there planning the Boston Tea Party. But the individuals at that time understood the necessary sacrifices.

During World War II, the people of the United States understood sacrifice because they knew their freedom could be lost. Today, you hear complaints about temporarily high gas prices due to trying to remove nuclear threats from a country that will use them against anyone who opposes them without discernment.

I believe God has blessed our country — not because our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are perfect documents, but because they provide hope that some of these imperfections could be worked out, giving its citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Understanding the threats to the Great Experiment throughout our country’s history
will help you see why I believe God has blessed this country.

In the early days of the Revolutionary War, our commander, Gen. George Washington, was defeated in the battle of Brooklyn. Washington and 9,000 Continental troops had their backs up against the East River, and Washington ordered a nighttime evacuation with the British army only 600 yards away. At daybreak, thousands of troops were still waiting to cross, including Washington. Remarkably, a thick fog settled over Brooklyn and the East River, allowing the army to safely cross the river with supplies. If Washington and his army had been captured, he would have been killed. With no army and no supplies, the experiment would have been gone with the wind. The signers of the Declaration of Independence would have met the same fate as Washington.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked the Hawaiian Islands. With the Pacific naval fleet crippled, Japan had open access to the West Coast of the United States. Such an invasion would have given them a strong foothold in our country. With our limited military at that time, turning them away would have been almost impossible. But, strangely, Japan not only turned away from the West Coast, they even turned away from the Hawaiian Islands.

With these two events, and there are more, is the United States just lucky? I don’t think so. I believe God has not only blessed this country but protected it as well.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush asked American musician and singer Michael W. Smith to write a song about the country. The song he wrote was “There She Stands.” It is about the American flag, the ultimate symbol of this Great Experiment. Here are some of the song’s lyrics:

“When the night seems to say/ All hope is lost, gone away/ But I know I’m not alone/ By the light she stands/ There she waves, faithful friend/ Shimmering stars, westward wind/ Show the way, carry me/ To the place she stands/ Just when you think it might be over/ Just when you think the fight is gone/ Someone will risk his life to raise her/ There she stands.”

God bless the USA until the Creator returns. Happy Fourth of July.

Manufactured homes are an affordable way to home ownership for many people.

But while modern manufactured homes may include energy-efficient features, older models may not, adding to your monthly costs to heat and cool your home.

South Alabama Electric Cooperative offers rebates to upgrade manufactured homes to energy-efficient heat pumps. SAEC members may qualify for rebates up to $400 per ton to convert their manufactured home to a heat pump system.

Older manufactured homes were often equipped with electric furnaces. SAEC’s rebate is designed to help cover the higher upfront costs to purchase a heat pump, which can be up to four times more efficient to operate than an electric furnace. And despite the name, heat pumps are efficient at both heating and cooling. Heat pumps work by moving heat from your inside home to the outdoors when set to cool and do the opposite when heating. Since heat pumps don’t generate heat, they are more efficient to run, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Members can save hundreds of dollars a year by upgrading to a heat pump.

The rebate is made possible with financial support from PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, says Andy Kimbro, vice president of member services for SAEC. As SAEC’s wholesale energy provider, PowerSouth has to provide enough capacity to meet the power demand among its co-op members. Rebates that improve operational efficiency even at a household level create cost savings for PowerSouth, SAEC and members.

For more information on the manufactured home rebate, contact SAEC’s member services team at 800-556-2060.

Kimbro says whatever heating and cooling system you currently have, it’s important to keep it maintained. Heating and cooling systems can account for roughly 50% of your monthly power bill.

Kimbro recommends having your system serviced once a year and changing the filter monthly to ensure it runs as efficiently as possible.

Opening of new Miracle League field delayed by tornado damage.

A few weeks before the Miracle League of Troy was set to debut a new baseball field at the Troy Sportsplex in 2025, the unthinkable happened. An EF2 tornado tore through the sportsplex, ripping part of the roof off the recreation center and damaging ballfields, bleachers and lighting.

Debris tossed by the tornado shredded the Miracle League’s new playing surface.
“It picked up one set of bleachers in particular and threw it into the chain link and backstop of the Miracle League field,” says Dan Smith, director of Troy Parks and Recreation. “The bleachers disintegrated but then kept going and just acted like box blades. It went across the surface of the brand-new Miracle League field that had never been played on.”

The diamond’s debut was delayed a year, but Miracle League athletes stepped onto their home field for the 2026 season with a new playing surface.

The Miracle League is a national organization that gives children and adults with disabilities the opportunity to play baseball. Today, there are chapters, sports complexes and teams across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Players are paired with volunteer buddies, who assist them during play. The fields and dugouts are wheelchair-accessible.

The first Miracle League field opened at the Troy Sportsplex in 2011.

“Our original surface was a rubber-coated safety surface that was installed in sheets and rolls, and it was beautiful when it was installed,” Smith says. “But over the years, the edges began to curl up on all of the seams, and it became not only unsightly but a hazard.”

The league sold T-shirts and sought donations from supporters to help cover the $200,000 cost of replacing the playing surface.

In 2024, South Alabama Electric Cooperative was among the contributors to the field restoration project, pledging $5,000. The cooperative’s wholesale energy provider, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, pledged another $5,000. SAEC also submitted the project to the charitable program of one of its third-party lenders, CoBank, which put in another $5,000.

Each year, SAEC employees make a Miracle League donation as a Christmas gift to CEO David Bailey, whose grandson Kristian Prettyman played with the Troy Miracle League.

Smith says the generosity of sponsors, individuals and the city of Troy helped the Miracle League raise enough money to cover the field in a synthetic turf similar to what is used on college and professional football and baseball fields.

The new field was completed in February 2025. Then on March 15, the EF2 tornado tore through Troy and rural Pike County.

“It was a very proud day when we were finished with it, and then three weeks later, the tornado came through,” Smith says. “Because there was so much damage to so many of our other recreational facilities, it all just kind of blended into one challenge. We were, of course, discouraged, but at the same time we were enthusiastically motivated to get everything reopened.”

Everything at the Miracle League field had to be replaced — the playing surface, the bleachers and the chain-link fencing. All lighting had to be replaced at the Miracle League field as well as 11 other baseball and softball fields and the soccer complex. Upgrades were made as well, such as shades over bleachers and netting to catch foul balls.

While heartbreaking for all those who worked to raise money for the new Miracle League field, Smith says they were thankful nobody was hurt in the tornado. Insurance as well as a multimillion dollar bond issue by the city government covered the cost of repairs.

Baseball, softball and Miracle League games were played in 2025 at other locations, including Troy University’s baseball field, where the Miracle League has traditionally played its season-opening game.

The Miracle League of Troy’s Monday night games were packed during the 2026 season as the new playing surface made its debut.

“It’s just beautiful,” Smith says. “Everybody loves it, and it was just standing-room only — a lot of people in the bleachers and in lawn chairs.”

Brittany and Austin Steen had a vision for the farm life they wanted.

Hiccup Farm came by its name honestly.

When Austin and Brittany Steen purchased a fixer-upper home with 35 acres of pastureland in the Spring Hill community south of Troy, they knew they had their work cut out for them.

They spent about eight months on repairs and renovations. It seemed the more they did, the more new problems they uncovered. One day, a contractor friend working on repairs with them casually commented about how they had experienced “hiccup after hiccup.”

The name stuck.

“It was kind of a diamond in the rough,” Austin says. “I don’t think I actually saw it listed. I think I drove by and saw a real estate sign laying on the ground. It took a unique buyer for sure.”

Brittany admits she struggled initially to see beyond the house’s disrepair, abandoned chicken houses and barns. The floor in the home was a concrete slab. There were no appliances. Brittany’s father fashioned a sink for them to use. Two of the chicken houses had burned at some point. The livestock barn was filled with junk. Even the land required work. Fencing had to be added to the property if the Steens wanted to raise livestock.

“He had a vision for it, and it took a long time for me to get on board,” Brittany says. “I heard what he was saying. I heard his heart and the desire, and we did agree. We both wanted the same thing, but I had a hard time seeing how it would happen here.”

Planting the seeds

They persevered and moved onto the farm in 2021. They started with broiler chickens, and in 2023, they got their first flock of 16 Katahdin sheep, a hair sheep that naturally sheds its coat in the spring and is primarily raised for meat. Today, Hiccup Farm has around 50 ewes and finished another lambing season in March.

Austin and Brittany grew up in small communities, hearing stories from their parents and grandparents about growing up on farms. They both attended Troy University and married in 2017, buying a home in a Troy subdivision.

With the arrival of their first child, they became more focused on knowing where the food they fed their family comes from and how it is raised, whether produce or meat.

Raising sheep is not necessarily what the Steens thought they would end up doing. Based on their research, sheep seemed less intimidating than starting out with cattle.

They follow practices known as regenerative farming, which includes using few chemicals on the land and the animals. They also rotate their livestock regularly so no area of the pasture is overgrazed. Because he continues working as an accountant and teaches an accounting class at Troy University, Austin appreciates the low input and sustainability of regenerative farming, but the couple say there’s more to it for them.

“Once we got out here and really started getting our feet wet and farming, we started learning more and more about it — just about how God designed the Earth to renew itself and the nutrients poured into the soil in order to feed the grass, which feeds our animals, which feeds us,” Brittany says. “It’s just that whole circle.”

A growing business

Hiccup Farm has done most of its business by word of mouth and through Facebook, but it now sells its meat products at Troy’s Terra Cotta Garden Center, where a refrigerated case features lamb, beef and chicken. The farm built a following of repeat customers in the few years since starting business.

Today, Hiccup Farm includes both sheep and cattle. Processing the meat, the Steens say, has been the biggest challenge. Because they sell retail, meat has to be processed at a USDA-certified facility, and there isn’t one in Pike County. Dothan is the closest place for beef processors, but the Steens currently have their lamb processed nearly two hours away in Colquitt, Georgia. They’ve used six different lamb processors since starting up. Because of restrictions and risk of cross-contamination, many processors just don’t work with lamb, the Steens say.

What produce the Steens grow feeds their family, which now includes 5-year-old Mary Ella, 3-year-old Calvin and 1-year-old Darby, along with a team of farm dogs featuring a border collie, a spaniel, a Great Pyrenees and an Anatolian shepherd to help watch over the flock and herd.

And just as Austin and Brittany envisioned, their children excitedly run around the property, picking wildflowers and following their parents on farm tasks. Austin has been actively working to restore native plant species on the land, and one of Mary Ella’s favorite things is to go out and find the native flowers as they start to bloom.
When Brittany looks back at where they started, it’s with fondness despite the challenges.

“The hiccups, they were obstacles on our journey to getting to where we are now, but they didn’t stop us,” she says. “That just is a testament, I think, to the Lord’s hand in that. He will help you through it and he’ll sustain you even when there are hiccups.”

Who likes change?

If you were to ask this question to a majority of people, they would likely say, "I am for change, if it makes everything better." But when you want to change something, their true colors will surface.

For example, if the music director of a traditional Southern Baptist church replaced the Sunday church hymns with modern praise music without asking anybody, that change would not go over very well, trust me.

There is a saying often attributed to Christian author C.S. Lewis: "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when we look back, everything is different?"

Electric cooperatives are not protected from the winds of change. There are around 900 electric cooperatives across the U.S. Within the next five years, over 40% of the CEOs of those cooperatives will be eligible for retirement. I am in that stat. This change in leadership is concerning as the electric industry faces so many challenges.

News channels report about the artificial intelligence revolution, stating the U.S. must win this AI race with China. There is a basic electric demand issue that needs to be addressed in the near future. The data centers that power AI will absorb a great amount of the electric demand capacity, and there are questions on who is going to pay for the generation needs that come with AI expansion.

With the normal residential and commercial growth within electric utilities, that question is easily answered. Those members pay for that growth. But AI growth may be different. Politicians are diving into the issue. They want data centers to pay for all the electric demand, generation and transmission costs up front or build their own generation and transmission assets.

I have not formed an opinion on data center companies being in the electric business, but I can see opportunities for us. Over the past few years, I have written in my monthly columns about various issues facing the cooperative world. We navigated the waters of a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, electric steel shortages, supply chain delays, labor shortages and the high cost of building electric generation plants and transmission and distribution lines.

While traveling through these rough and deep waters, the cooperative has maintained its focus on safety, reliability and reasonable cost of electricity.

During these times, Gary Smith served as the CEO of PowerSouth Energy Cooperative. He held this position for more than 26 years and had a PowerSouth career spanning over 37 years. Like myself, Gary is an accountant, but he attended law school and became a lawyer not a CPA. However, Gary's greatest asset as CEO was his ability to develop relationships.

These relationships ranged from PowerSouth member cooperatives -- which SAEC is one -- employees and trustees, leaders at Alabama Power Company, the Business Council of Alabama and electric industry leaders.

By the time you read this article, Gary will be retired. The native of Corinth, Mississippi, made a big splash in the electric industry world. But things do change.

Gary and I are "Roll Tide Roll" fans and old enough to remember the times when Alabama had to hire a new head football coach to follow the greatest college football coach ever! Now, I am not going to discuss which Bama head football coach is No. 1 or No. 2, but Paul "Bear" Bryant and Nick Saban are, without a doubt, the greatest. You do not replace those coaches, and you do not replace Gary Smith.

Like Alabama football, PowerSouth has high standards. Our new CEO starts June 1. Damon Morgan will continue to meet those high standards and lead the members through the continuing rough waters of the electric industry.

Damon has over 40 years of service at PowerSouth, mentoring under Gary for over half of those years. Damon has a great ship to sail, and I am confident he will not run that ship to ground.

As far as the country boy from Corinth, I'm going to miss Gary's leadership, knowledge and his friendship. Gary enters retirement with his wife, Debbi, three daughters and sons-in-law and eight grandchildren. As you can see, Gary can stay as busy as he wants to be with his family. Gary also has a boating and fishing companion -- his trusted yellow Lab, Yadi.

Gary, good luck on your next race. You have finished your race at PowerSouth, and like a true Alabama football fan, you finished your race as a champion!

SAEC awards scholarships to local seniors

South Alabama Electric Cooperative awarded 24 scholarships to 22 local high school seniors — 20 through the Electric Cooperative Foundation plus four from the SAEC Employee Scholarship Fund for children of cooperative employees. Two of this year’s scholarship recipients received one of each. Students awarded ECF scholarships received $1,000 each, while those receiving SAEC Employee scholarships were given $1,250 each.

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 Washington Youth Tour.

Duncan, who attends Zion Chapel High School, says she was sad to see the Montgomery 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 speaking, 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 Washington, 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 Montgomery 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.