Nicole Akins Boyd serves in the Mississippi Senate today, representing Lafayette County and part of Panola County in
the northwest part of the state. But four decades ago, she was a 17-year-old test case as the first delegate from Mississippi selected to participate in the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour.
In 1986, the statewide association, then known as the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi, chose Boyd, a student at Oxford High School, to attend the annual event and report back on whether the state’s co-ops should join the 28-year-old program.
Boyd, whose family belonged to North East Mississippi Electric Power Association, traveled as part of the Tennessee delegation and about 900 other delegates from around the nation. When she returned, she presented her findings to cooperative leaders across the state.
“My job was to sell. I was all about everybody going to Washington because I just knew how important it was for me to see things bigger than my little postage-stamp perception of the world,” she says.
Mississippi co-ops embraced the program, and this year’s delegation numbered 84 students.
“It’s fantastic to see how it’s grown,” she says. “In a day and age when there is a lot of cynicism out there, I love that they can continue to learn about cooperatives and the rural electric system.”
The Electric Cooperative Youth Tour experience helped shape Boyd’s interest in public service. After graduating from Mississippi State University and law school at the University of Mississippi, she built a career in law and government before winning election to the Mississippi Senate in 2020.
“I came back wanting to make a positive change,” she says. “I wanted to be part of the policymaking process, and I wanted to be part of the things that are good and are going to make our state and our country grow.”
As a state senator, Boyd has seen firsthand how co-ops do more than provide electricity.
“They’re about connecting people and that’s not a partisan issue,” she says. “They are absolutely essential to the workforce in this day and age. Broadband expansion had to be a critical component for the state of Mississippi to develop because that’s one of the things that industries are looking at, and rural electric cooperatives are an essential part of that.”
Four decades after her Electric Cooperative Youth Tour experience, Boyd still considers it unlike any other leadership program.
“I think this one’s unique,” she says. “I learned very early on about the need to understand very, very important policy matters and that has stayed with me. I don’t see anything around the country that does something like the Youth Tour for rural areas.” – NRECA
EDITOR’S NOTE: Today in Mississippi profiled State Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd in a February 2026 cover story, which you can read by clicking here.
