Every morning at 7:15, four Salem Community High School seniors show up in business attire, ready to learn. Their motto: if you're on time, you're late. They're part of CEO—Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities—a program bringing together students from Salem, Centralia, Patoka, Odin, and South Central to learn business from the inside out.

Facilitator Mallory Crouse guides them through business visits across Little Egypt, where they meet owners, hear origin stories, and see what happens behind the scenes—financing, insurance, hiring, and the thousand small decisions that add up to something sustainable. They don't just tour a shop floor and leave. They learn how the sausage gets made.

Senior Luci Schaubert was already doing nails before CEO. The business started when she and a friend were both laid up from serious injuries. Her friend had been in an ATV accident and couldn't get to a salon anymore. Luci couldn't do much physically either. They both wanted their nails done. So they figured it out together.

CEO didn't give her the spark—it gave her structure. A way to think about costs, pricing, customers, and what it means to grow a business without losing the heart that made it matter. But Luci's dream isn't entrepreneurship. She wants to do movie makeup. "Makeup and nails and hair, all of this," she says. "It's always been my thing." CEO is teaching her skills for whatever path she takes.

Jaelyn Keller entered CEO thinking she'd expand her softball lessons into a formal business. It made sense on paper. But as she planned it out, something felt wrong. "When you start your business, you want it to be something that you want to do," she says. "It shouldn't feel like a chore." The lessons felt like a chore. So she pivoted.

She created Everlight Photography, inspired by a Bible verse about God's light shining through a person and not leaving them. Her hope is to capture families, friends, and eventually the sports she loves. She plays softball and already envisions action shots of teammates and her younger brother on the field.

But CEO gave Jaelyn something beyond business skills. "I used to be a shy person," she says. "And ever since I've been in CEO, I feel like I talk a lot more. Like in class, I don't usually speak up and say stuff. And I feel like being in CEO has helped me have confidence that I can speak up my opinion."

Her aunt owns multiple businesses—the ABC pub and Allstate—and mentors her. But her aunt also shows her the struggles. "I like the thought of having my own business," Jaelyn admits. "I just don't know if it's worth all the struggles... Do I want to go through all that stress all my life?" That honesty is wisdom, not failure. CEO is teaching her to make informed choices.

Ella Smith came with a different angle: custom apparel. Her business, Roots and Rallies, focuses on T-shirts, crewnecks, and sweatshirts decorated with DTF transfers. She can work with a customer's existing logo or create something new, marketing through Facebook, Instagram, and word of mouth. Her dad, a banker who also runs a lawn mowing company, taught her early: "It's not what you know, it's who you know." CEO is teaching her to do both.

Abigail Patrick is planning AP Marketing, a social media content service for local businesses. She spent a summer learning from a marketing professional and loved how she could help businesses show the world what they want to be known for. "Throughout the class we've really learned how to network," Abigail says. "Shaking hands, eye contact, just simple things like that, maybe we wouldn't have known before."

What CEO teaches goes beyond business mechanics. It's about walking into real businesses, shaking hands, asking questions, and realizing that people who run things are often just neighbors who once stood where they stand now. It's about learning to depend on others and cooperate with them.

Not all of them will become entrepreneurs. Some will discover, like Jaelyn, that they value peace over profit. Others will carry these skills into careers they haven't imagined yet. But all of them are learning to connect, to present themselves professionally, and to see possibility—not somewhere far away, but right here, in the community they already call home.