Fayette’s entrepreneurial program students displaying businesses at trade show Friday

Nine area high school students who will be graduating in the coming weeks have had an opportunity to learn and experience much more than their classmates.

But, in order to do so, those students have had to commit to adding more than seven additional hours to each school week as part of a group, as well as countless other hours of work on their own.
Those nine students are in the inaugural group of Fayette County students participating in the Midland Institute for Entrepreneurship’s Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities program.
The first CEO group includes Reyna Arenas, Blake Barth, Cori Hipsher, J’Amy Jackson, Dustin Lott, Blake Morrison and Clark Pearson of Vandalia Community High School, Macy Cripe of Brownstown High School and Marlee Nolen of St. Elmo High School.
That group of students has met for an hour and 45 minutes before the start of their school day each week since last fall, whether it be for a guest speaker from a local business or industry, a visit to a local business or industry or working on their class business.
In addition to the time they spent together with the local CEO facilitator, retired Vandalia teacher Debbie Hobbie, those students had the responsibility of keeping and turning in each Sunday a journal of what they had experienced and learned that week.
Additionally, each student was charged with creating his or her own personal business.
Those nine personal businesses will be on display this Friday, from 5-7:30 p.m., when the first CEO class holds its trade show at the Kaskaskia College Vandalia Campus on West Fillmore Street.
Those businesses are:
• Reyna Arenas Makeup
• Hurricane Creek Copper, jewelry by Pearson.
• BXB 3-on-3, a basketball tournament planned by Barth and Morrison.
• JJ’s Cases of Honor, flag cases made by Jackson.
• InBloom, terrariums, air plants and vintage planters by Nolen.
• Lois Layne Boutique, Cripe’s apparel and clothing business.
• Hello World Robotics, Lott’s robotics and programming class for children ages 10 and up.
• Candles by Cori, Hipsher’s scented candles.
The first CEO program began in Effingham in 2008, after a student “who wanted to connect with a local entrepreneur, but wasn’t sure how to go about it.
“Entrepreneurship education seeks to prepare people, especially youth, to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities,” according to the program description.
“The CEO program is much more than a textbook course. Rather, students are immersed in real life learning experiences with the opportunity to take risks, manage the results, and learn from the outcomes.”
The Midland Institute partners with communities throughout the country to provide the CEO program.
The idea of bringing the program surfaced about 2½ years ago, and it became a reality prior to the start of this school year, with incoming high school seniors in the county having the opportunity to apply for participation.
Overseeing the program in this county is a board made up of Sally Emerick, Mike Shackelford, Dr. Brad Dunn, Todd Stapleton, Sandy Michel-Stempinski, Wes Wilhour, Nick Casey, Pat Click, Beth Kern, Greg Starnes and Mike Radliff.
Each of the students in the class was linked with a mentor, a member of the business community from whom he or she could learn about business and receive advice.
The operation of the program is supported by close to 40 investors: local business and industry professionals as well as individuals.
At the first meeting of the class last fall, Hobbie explained to the students what they would be experiencing this school year.
“You don’t come to class – you come to work,” Hobbie said, telling the students that there “are high expectations.
“It will probably be harder than any of your high school classes,” she said.
First, Hobbie told the students some of the basic things they need to know, both as a member of the class and as a business professional.
That included being polite, engaging with others and being on time.
“We will do what we say we will do, and we’ll do it well,” Hobbie told the students.
“I’m not really your boss and I’m not a teacher – I am a facilitor,” she said.
The first thing required of the students was to design and purchase a class badge and lanyard that they would wear when representing themselves as a member of the class.
That project took some time, with the students exploring their options and learning to work as a team.
After going through the program, students learned a lot of skills that would have made that first project much easier.
“I think of how we fumbled through that,” Hobbie said. “Now, we could do that in one class period.”
Some of the first-year CEO students knew nothing about the program prior to signing up, deciding to participate because it was a new experience or a chance to learn outside a school setting.
“I didn’t even know what a Chamber of Commerce was,” Pearson said.
Others had learned a little bit from students in neighboring counties who had gone through it.
Nolen has friends in Altamont who went through the program “and I saw how mature they were. They were literally a step ahead of everyone else at school.”
Through the visits to local businesses and industries, students had a chance to learn not only how they operated, but also the wide range of employment opportunities available in this county.
They also learned more about what’s happening at businesses in their communities.
“In one of the first visits, me included, we didn’t even know they were in Vandalia or what they did,” Hobbie said.
When it came to deciding on a personal business, “some of them took what they knew. Clark had access to the welding, and (Barth and Morrison) are athletes, they’re basketball players,” Hobbie said.
Arenas said she had been thinking about working in makeup for several years, and Cripe had begun her business last summer.
Pearson “bounced around three or four ideas. I was going to do candles,” he said.
Hiphser said, “I like candles, and there are so many different things you can do with them.”
One day, she thought, “Oh, I could make those. It was kind of like an epiphany.”
Jackson decided on making flag cases for veterans after seeing her family make them and seeing her grandfather working in a wood shop.
“So, I thought it would be cool to keep it going,” Jackson said.
Hobbie added, “That is a really neat family tradition, especially with her brothers being in the military.
And, in addition to their work for the class and on their personal businesses, the CEO students made time to help others.
“They got to do a lot of things,” Hobbie said. “They got to help on the Small Business Awards that the city is presenting.”
Students operated a S’mores stand at Olde Tyme Christmas and worked with Peoples State Bank on gathering hygiene items for the “Need One, Take One” program at area high schools.
“They’ve done a lot of things that really aren’t business-related, things that are just about people good people and giving back to the community,” Hobbie said.
“They’ve done a lot of community service,” she said.
“That’s something that we’ve heard at almost every business we’ve been at, that it’s part of the business, giving back,” Hobbie said.
The class is going to be making a number of donations in the near future, and Hipsher said, “I think that with all of our personal businesses we’ve all done some sort of donation to something.”
Juggling class responsibilities along with those at school can be a chore, especially at this time of year, with proms, graduations and other school events.
Cripe said that sometimes people have wondered why she seemed stressed. That, she said, “is because I’m literally running a business.”
Hipsher said, “I feel like one thing that people don’t understand is that at 18, we are actually running a business.
“It’s not just writing something down like, in 25 years, I hope to own a candle company,” she said. “No, I’m doing it now.
Hobbie agreed on that point. “It’s not a club – it’s a business.”
In general terms, Hipsher said, “You get a head start in the real world before you actually have to jump into the real world completely.”
 

Fayette County’s first CEO Program class is pictured above. In front, from left to right, are J’Amy Jackson, Cori Hipsher, Reyna Arenas, Marlee Nolen and Macy Cripe. In back are Clark Pearson, Blake Morrison, Blake Barth, Dustin Lott and facilitator Debbie Hobbie.