PEC Awards WHS Junior trip to D.C.

The Pedernales Electric Co-op presents a free trip for students to Washington D.C., as it has for the past 60 years, to participate in the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Youth Tour program.

This summer one of the 10 students participating in this summer’s program is Wimberley High School Junior Luthary Segura. She’s happy and excited about this spring’s all expenses paid trip.

“PEC was at one of the Rotary meetings… I received the information. My parents (I said to myself) can’t say no, it’s all expenses paid. I read up on it. I get to see the memorial site where Martin Luther King gave his speech,” Segura said. “I signed up and out of 200, ten would go. I’m the first from Wimberley.”

The last week of June, she leaves for ten days. On the trip, the students will tour historical sites, meet their representatives, and see Washington D.C. But there’s a lot more to Luthary. She’s smart, confident and busy, concerned about the community and the world.

She is the vice president of the Rotary Interact (International Action) in Wimberley’s Rotary Club. Interact is Rotary International’s service club for young people ages 12 to 18. The Interact club is sponsored by Wimberley Rotary Club, which provide support and guidance, but they are self-governing and self-supporting. They have two service projects each year, local and international.

According to their website, the purpose of Interact club is to help young people:

• Connect with community leaders

• Develop leadership skills

• Make international connections

• Discover more opportunities to connect with Rotary

“There’s not a lot of club members, but we have a base. We’ll have a project where four charity bins will be set up at our charity event for each of the following for CO2 emissions, Plastic Ocean for cleaning up plastic from our oceans, forest rebuild and the Yemen Crisis,” Segura said.

They’ll set up the project at Market Days in April. “Hopefully next year we can spread to the community and bring about awareness in the world…we’ll have more students on the ball for the future.” The club is hoping their message will get a following in the middle school.

Some other organizations she is a part of are the National Honor Society, Robotics, and outreach programs in the community. Her favorite classes are biology, chemistry and math, which are subjects that should help her pursuing a career researching brain and mental disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

And of course her parents Virginia and Ivan Segura couldn’t say “no” to the all expense paid trip to D.C. They, like Luthary are looking forward to June.