Every year, one delegate is selected to serve as the national spokesperson for NRECA's Youth Leadership Council. The spokesperson serves as a unifying voice for the council and addresses the electric cooperative leaders attending NRECA PowerXchange.

Maggie Martin, a member of Columbus, Mississippi-based 4-County Electric Power Association and a senior at Starkville Academy, was chosen as the 2025 national spokesperson. Read her full remarks below for this year's annual gathering in Atlanta:

“Who says? Who says you're not perfect? Who says you're not worth it?" Unfortunately for my older sister, I grew up belting these lyrics in the backseats of parents' cars. Now, if you somehow made it here today without the use of Spotify, let me help you out. These are song lyrics from the hit Selena Gomez song “Who Says." A song all about embracing who you are and ignoring those who make you feel less than. But what do you do when the person who says “You're not perfect" is the same one you see when you look in the mirror, or when the voice that constantly reminds you “You're not worth it" is your own?

From a young age I was, well, sensitive. (I was the kid who cried over everything.) But as I reached middle school, my emotions began to become more than just your average sensitivity. I needed a 100 on every test, the perfect performance at every dance recital; even if I had never tried it before, there was no room for error. Each mistake was proof to me of what I believed made me worthless, my imperfection. Because I could never reach the perfection I so desperately craved, each day ended with either crying or hyperventilating. At just 12 years old I despised my mind and my painfully obvious emotions. After every public meltdown, I would dig my nails into the backs of my hands, a punishment, not only for imperfection but for allowing it all to be seen. My parents did see me though, and they decided that I couldn't face this alone anymore.

During my seventh and eighth grade years, I was checked out of school like clockwork every Tuesday to see my counselor, and I hated it. Facing my mind was my biggest fear. I didn't want to look at the unachievable standards I had set for myself or revisit my embarrassing reactions. I wanted to change. I hated who I saw in the mirror but often part of me whispered, “You aren't worth it anyway, why try?" Luckily, I didn't understand the action that voice was trying to lead me to and so the only way out was through. Through months of ups and downs and countless hours journaling, I began to learn the truth: I'm not perfect, and I never will be. Eventually I grew better at managing my perfectionism and anxiety—so much so that by ninth grade, I was out of counseling altogether. However, there was one piece of it all that I never seemed to shake no matter what my mind always said: “You're not perfect, so you'll never be worth it."

I went through most of ninth and 10th grade believing that phrase and often feeling like a burden. It required so much mental work just for me to get through an average task without crying. I saw my peers. They seemed to float through life, never weighed down, never upset. I thought, “If I can't be like them… why should I be here at all?" I didn't want to live with what I deemed as a flawed mind: the perfectionism the anxiety, constantly held back. I wanted to be normal, but before I knew it, “normal" sort of lost all definition.

On Thursday Dec. 1, 2022, I walked into school and immediately something was different. I don't so much remember the events of this day as I lived them; it's more like a movie of my life. I see the scenes: an empty desk behind mine in first-period geometry, my entire 10th grade class sitting in the gym, and then, the shock and the tears on our faces as we learned that our upbeat, always smiling classmate had taken his own life. I do have one clear memory from this day though—I remember sitting outside with my back to this cold wall and thinking about what my friend must have felt to go as far as to take his own life. I realized that day that emotions were powerful and I became even more terrified of my mind. What if it drove me that far, what if I answered the voice that said you're not worth it?

Then, during the first week of my junior year, a middle school girl who I had been given the opportunity to mentor attempted to take her own life and passed away three days later in the hospital. I remember coming home to my parents the night she passed and saying, “It all just feels so inescapable." What I didn't say was that I believed losing her was my fault. I was someone who was supposed to show her light, but I was too flawed to lead and so she was gone. And I believed then that I deserved to be, too.

That night I pulled out a box that I had been keeping under my bed for a while—a box that held the journals from my very first counseling sessions. I hated my imperfection, how it overwhelmed me so easily, how it held me back from leading others—but I realized as I read through my journals it was the very thing I resented the most that had saved me. Because of everything I deemed as a flaw, I was seen and thrown into counseling, which (whether or not I knew it) taught me the truths that kept the voice in my mind quiet enough to keep me from acting on it. I decided that night that I had been wrong. I was not too flawed to lead, and no matter what my mind tried to tell me, my life would never be too imperfect to throw away.

Since that night, I've grown a lot. I've allowed myself to fail, to learn from failure, and to step into even the things that scare me. One being a program that would teach me about electric cooperatives and leadership, which would take me on an incredible trip to Washington D.C., and most importantly allow me to discover my voice. I left Youth Tour feeling inspired about the future of co-ops, the future of our country, and for the first time, inspired about my future. Thanks to NRECA, to the Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi and 4-County Electric Power Association for sponsoring the trip that allowed me to see a new vision for myself. I stand before you today as an imperfect, slightly anxious, perfectionist. But more than that, I stand before you today as a leader. One with a truth to share, and two questions left to answer.

So, “Who says? Who says you're not perfect?" Well … I do. I say it to you and I say it to myself because it's true. We will always have flaws and imperfections—however, that's not the only truth that matters. After all we still have a question left. “Who says you're not worth it?" I don't know. Maybe it's a friend or a family member; maybe you're like me and it's your own mind and your own imperfections.

However, it's not the words of others, our thoughts, or even our flaws that define us; in fact, it is those things that can often save us, inspire us, and give us the capacity to lead and impact others. It is those things that teach us the truth. And the truth is, no matter what anyone says, no matter what you believe, and no matter what flaws you face, you are absolutely … worth it.