Four students from Madras High School have been selected to travel to Japan for 10 days in June to visit Madras’ sister city, Tomi City, and experience a world away from home.

The group — Osmar Rodriguez Piza, Jessica Geinger, Tyreyk Ramsay and Wynona Tewee — and their chaperone, Jefferson County School Board member Jamie Hurd, are raising money to cover travel and lodging costs associated with the trip.

The opportunity to travel to Japan is not one taken lightly, but going through the highly selective application process and fundraising will be worth it, Piza said.

“I never thought I’d make it, but I am really excited to learn about their culture and bring some of it back home,” he said. “It’s incredibly important for people to know that Madras is not the whole world. We can go out (in the world) and see different things and experience different things. We can always learn more.”

Piza, 16, has traveled to Colombia and Mexico and is excited to have the opportunity to experience another culture, he said.

The Madras High junior has been watching YouTube videos to get a better understanding of Japanese culture and etiquette.

“I don’t want to offend anybody,” he said.

The four students are required to raise $2,500 each before June 1 to fund the cost of the trip. Letter campaigns, presentations to the Madras City Council, a can drive, a raffle and other ideas, such as making corsages for prom, are at the forefront of the campaign.

The trip is a piece of the Sister City Program that was established in 1992. The sister-city relationship was originally with a small agricultural village with a population of 5,500 in the mountains of Japan’s main island. The village merged with Tomi City in 2004, and the first group of students traveled from Japan to Madras in 2005.

Students will spend four days with different host families in Tomi City visiting schools, rice farms and other sites. They will then travel to Tokyo and spend four days exploring the city.

This is only the second time that students will travel from Madras High to Japan.

For one student, the trip is a “once in a lifetime experience.”

“I always knew I wanted to travel out of the country, so when I heard about it over the daily announcements, I knew I had to apply,” said Ramsay.

The Madras High junior is part Native American and said he is excited to share art and other cultural aspects with his host family. Ramsay, 16, has never traveled outside the United States, he said, and he knows that this trip will have a big impact on career choices in entrepreneurship.

“We want to represent the city there, and then when we come back, we can encourage other kids to apply for it next year,” Ramsay said.

Sister Cities International was established in 1956 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration, and its founding principle of creating bonds between people of different nations continues, said Floyd Courtain, who helped establish the Madras sister-city program.

“Unless countries and people get to know each other and know their customs and how they live, we will have wars,” he said.

“This is one way to pave the road between different cultures and how to understand each other better.”

In addition to the trip to Japan, students and faculty at Madras High have formed a Japanese Culture Club that continues to grow, said club adviser and special education teacher Ben Hawker.

“We have a great bunch of kids here in Madras; to them, (diversity) is normal, so they want to keep learning more about other cultures,” he said. “We are just beginning. We have a lot of potential and opportunity for students to learn and be a part of something here at Madras High.”

For Madras High senior Geinger, 18, the trip will be exciting, educational and even a little scary.

“I don’t want to get lost,” she said. “It’s just a whole new culture.”

Geinger is the vice president of the Japanese Culture Club and is most interested in the day-to-day differences in culture, such as tipping at restaurants, for example, or how people deal with air quality. She also wants to bring true American comfort food to share with her host family, like a box of classic mac and cheese, she said.

Multiple members of her family have been missionaries in Japan, she said, and she is also excited to leave the United States for the first time.

The City of Madras has pledged to donate $500 to each student and is dedicating a sum of money in its budget for the trip every year moving forward, Hurd said.

“We are hoping to build excitement and momentum, and every year, it seems to be a few more people excited about it,” she said.

Anyone interested in purchasing raffle tickets to support the trip can visit the Madras Sister City — Tomi City, Japan Facebook page or the Jefferson County Chamber. The group also has a GoFundMe page.

— Reporter: 541-617-7829, acolosky@bendbulletin.com