LOCAL STUDENTS ATTEND CAMP ENTERPRISE

Sixty students from eight area high schools attended the sixth annual "Camp Enterprise" held at the Peaceful Valley Camp in St. Marys, Mo., on Sept. 12-13.

Camp Enterprise is a major vocational service project of the Rotary Clubs of the Cape Girardeau and Jackson area. The camp was an intensive two-day seminar on business issues where the students interacted with business executives and government representatives from the surrounding area.

Students arrived by bus from their respective areas and were immediately immersed in a stimulating give-and-take environment. Recreational activities revolved around team building support which was also used in the classroom setting.

The 60 students attending the seminar were divided into eight teams of eight with each team forming a company involved in the manufacturing of pens. The teams chose a company name and competed among each other for a period of eight quarters, a simulated two year span in business. The students were able to operate their individual companies, controlling their inventories and production, manipulating manufacturing costs relative to economic conditions, determining the selling price for finished goods and budgeting marketing and promotional expenses. Each quarter all of these factors were fed into a computer simulation program which took into account all of the teams' plans and then gave back the unit sales and market share each company generated from the total market available.

The objective of this seminar was to expose students to the business world on a personal level and hopefully discover that a business career may offer personal satisfaction, allow creativity and provide many opportunities to contribute to society.

The Cape and Jackson Rotary Clubs plan to continue to provide this opportunity for the area youth with the mission to Camp Enterprise being "to introduce area high school seniors to the entrepreneurial skills necessary to compete in tomorrow's business environment, while emphasizing the ideals of Rotary in business practices for these future leaders."

Corporate sponsors for this year's seminar included J.C. Penney's; Kwik Kopy Printing; Ceramo, Co., Inc.; Lone Star Industries; Schapers IGA/SAV-A-LOT; Central States Bottling, Co.; Crader Dist. Co.; Gilster-Mary Lee Corp.; Union Planters Bank and T. Wayne Lewis, D.D.S.