The eight students in this year’s Little Egypt CEO program report good sales among the 167 attending the trade show Wednesday night at the Harvest Room in Salem.
Facilitator Mallory Crouse says the show ends a busy year.
“The biggest growth that I see in the kids from the start to the end is how well they communicate,” Crouse said. “They’re not afraid anymore to talk to anybody, network, and make an ask to help with their businesses.”
The students agree. Abigail Patrick of Salem Community High School say they have come a long way.
“I would absolutely recommend it to everyone,” Patrick said. “I have learned so many communication skills. I’m not scared to talk to people and present myself in a formal way. It has really taught me to learn the area of business and more of financial and overall business culture.”
Another SCHS student, Luci Schaubert, says it was worth getting up to begin the program at 7:30 each morning.
“I think it’s really beneficial to anyone who is even slightly interested in business,” Schaubert said. “It’s not like a normal class, and I really enjoyed that. We didn’t sit at desks and take notes all day. We went places and we did things, and we got to learn about running a business in a way that made it fun, engaging, and entertaining at all times.
Centralia High Student Ben Wangler says it was interesting to see the class develop over the year.
“You really grow and learn how to deal with people in different social settings and learn to better understand people so you can interact more efficiently and get things done together,” Wengler said. “For example, we had a group project at the very beginning of the class and then we had one a little bit later. The first one went way worse than the second one, just because we didn’t know how to interact with each other yet. The next group project… everything was so much smoother after we learned each other’s personalities and how to interact and talk with each other.”
Many of the students plan to keep their businesses operating after they graduate from high school and move onto college.
Crouse says there will be six CEO students next year from Salem, Centralia, and South Central High Schools.
Jazzmine Riley of Odin High School created Knead a Little Love Bakery.
Grant Davis of Centralia High School created 40/31 Athletics.
Ella Smith of Salem Community High School created Roots and Rallies imprints.
Centralia High School student Ben Wangler created the business Mushroom Clones.
Audrea Donoho, who is home-schooled, created Wildlight Fox Photography.
SCHS student Jaelyn Keller developed Everlite Photography.
Luci Shaubert, a Salem Community High School student, developed Lucilu Nails.
