The McDonough County Retired Teachers kicked off the second semester of their year with a March 13 meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church. The featured presentation came from representatives of the McDonough County 'Creating Entreprenurial Opportunities' (CEO) program.
Alison Jefferson, who serves as facilitator, brought three students with her to explain how the intensive learning experience operates.
The program is open to county juniors and seniors. Carlee Jackson and Timothy Todd, both juniors at West Prairie High School spoke of their immersion in the intensive program while CEO alumna Alyssa Shockency, a Macomb High School graduate and current freshman at Illinois State, spoke of positive take-aways from her year in the program.
The concept behind CEO originated in 2008 with the Midland Institute for Entrepreneurship homebased in Effingham, Ill. According to Jefferson, McDonough Country CEO is one of 75 chapters throughout central Illinois with a few other chapters in Indiana and Iowa as well as from Alabama and Utah.
Students apply for the program and are selected in a blind application process. They meet every day from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. but never in a school classroom. As explained, the McDonough program is divided into three segments: the first segment meets at McDonough Telephone Cooperative for activities and speaker presentations; the second segment meets at the Regional Office of Education #26; the third meets in Bushnell at the former Carl Sandburg College extension center, now the community offices of Schuld storage bins company.
Two hours of credit is earned for participation in the program, and in some cases, students qualify for dual credit as well. They may visit up to 40 business within the school year and hear nearly 40 presentations from guest speakers. Such connectivity with the community requires a tremendous amount of coordination as well as student commitment.
As part of the curriculum, this year's class of 10 students forms a company, electing administrative positions (after presentations and interviews within the group). Jefferson indicated that she hands each student a $2 bill and tells them to turn it into $100 to be used as seed money for the company. Students also form their own individual businesses, almost all of them marketing a product. Few students market a service.
In the case of the three guests, Carlee created the business Golden Crust Bakery featuring sourdough bread products. Alyssa's business when she was a student was called Bakebites Bakery featuring cupcakes baked in a mug. Tim took the services routed with his business called Next Act Studios providing vocal music and theater arts instruction.
Each student spoke highly of the positive aspects of the challenges they have faced in creating a viable business model, promoting it, and learning how to handle setbacks as well as successes.
With the extensive support of 27 local businesses, who each pledge $1,000 in support of CEO, and with the expertise of 12 board members who counsel the students, the Creating Entreprenurial Opportunities program is busy enabling dedicated students to become future business leaders.
To become better inform about the McDonough County CEO program, its students, its facilitator, its sponsors, and its board, go to the website at mcdonoughcountyceo.com In their regular business meeting, the group discussed making adjustments to next year's budget in light of declining active membership. One adjustment will be the discontinuing sponsorship of the John Blevins Memorial Walk/Run during Heritage Days.
Claudia Scott informed the members that 11 WIU students are eligible for the MCRTA Teacher Scholarship. Treasurer of the committee Gary Saunders said that the program has enough funds to cover the next three years of providing a $500 scholarship per semester for a selected student planning to becoming a teacher.
Some of the members have been active in volunteer service within the area schools. Upcoming is math night at West Prairie North Elementary on April 29 with a couple of teachers assisting with math activities.
Next month's meeting on Friday, April 10, will be held at the Western Illinois Museum. Sue Scott will present a program entitled 'Lessons from the Prairie: Early Women Educators in West Central Illinois.' The presentation begins at 9:00 a.m., and anyone is invited to attend.
