Since the start of the school year, 14 students from Perryville, St. Vincent and Saxony Lutheran high schools have been participating in an inventive class called Perryville Area CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities). According to the program’s creators, the class “immerses students in the business community, where they can develop employability skills.”
Carter Blechle, Adalina Deckerd, Ben Huber, Kaleb Huber, Waylon Huber, Lexi Johnson, Maralisa Lopez-Herrera, Savannah Lukefahr, Mirra Pingel, John Schwartz, Marcas Smith, Kennedy Sutterer, Samantha Tomlinson, and Amelia Wilson are the participating students.
Instructor Amy Camarillo explained that the program is designed to foster entrepreneurial aspirations in young people while exposing them to the many career and start-up opportunities in their community. As part of the program, students identify a product or service that is needed locally, create a business plan, and launch their own business.
“About two years ago, I went to a professional development meeting with a group of people from the community where the program was presented to some different businesspeople,” Camarillo said. “It just kind of continued from there. The city really liked the program, and so did the school. They thought it seemed like it would be a good thing for our kids. It just kind of took off from there. It’s been over a year-long process in the making, so we’ve been working on it for quite a while.”
Eleven states across the nation with over 70 programs and 330 schools are currently participating in the CEO program, which is designed to strengthen the future workforce, increase economic development with the launch of multiple new businesses each year, and cause bright students to invest in their hometowns instead of moving away for economic opportunities.
What drew Camarillo’s interest in CEO was the practical nature of the program.
“For me personally, it’s the students getting to learn hands-on from businesspeople in our community,” she said. “In my experience, students listen and pay attention more when it’s coming from someone who is actually living it and doing it rather than from a textbook. This enables the students to go out and actually experience all of those things. We are out in businesses. We get to tour a variety of businesses.”
Camarillo estimates that the students have visited 10 to 12 local businesses and heard from businesspeople who speak to the students in class.
“Then they do a class business project, which is what we are currently doing right now, where they come up with a way that they can earn some money, and they have to go through everything from the ground up to get it working and to make it feasible.
“And then the second semester, they’ll each take their own individual idea on how they could make some money — their own entrepreneurial idea. They will take that and make it into a reality for a showcase that we’re going to have in early May.”
Asked what the showcase will consist of, Camarillo said, “It will be them setting up a booth to advertise their service or their product, and people from the community will be able to come in and view those and see whether or not they think they’re a great investment or a great idea. They can talk to the students, and they are able to try to sell their product or service on their own.”
While Camarillo said she couldn’t speak for all the students participating in the program, she believed they were all enjoying the experience.
“They all seem to be very attentive,” she said. “I think they’re really taking to it. It’s definitely a different school environment for them. I don’t even really want to call it school because they’re not in the classroom. They are out in the business community every day. We never have class in an actual classroom.”
Waylon Huber, a junior, said he got involved in the program to help him discover what he wants to do with his life.
“For me personally, it was not knowing what I wanted to do in the future and wanting to get out in the business world and see what it was like,” he said.
Senior Lexi Johnson said she entered the program to gain more practical knowledge.
“I wanted ideas and insights on the background of how to run a business rather than just ‘Here is a business, and this is what we do on a daily basis. I wanted to know the little tricks and quirks that everybody had.”
Both agreed that the CEO program’s method of actual business experience is far superior to learning material from a textbook while sitting in a classroom.
Overseeing the program is the Perryville Area CEO Program Advisory Board, which brings together local leaders from a selection of industries and organizations. Jared Cochran of Speed Fabrication and Carisa Stark of Mary Jane Burgers and Brews are the co-chairs, and members are EDA Executive Director Crystal Jones, Dave Monier of Robinson Construction Company, Ed Flores of The Bank of Missouri, Dennis Bohnert of First State Community Bank, Amy Kiehne of Saxony Lutheran High School, Melanie Dodd of St. Vincent High School, and Craig Hayden of District 32.