By Per Peterson
A mentorship program aimed at benefitting local students and, in turn, strengthening area communities was officially introduced to Tracy leaders last Wednesday.
The Lyon and Murray County CEO program is being presented as an entrepreneurial experience for high school students. The program has already seen success in the Luverne community, and is also being touted as an economic development tool.
Carla Goedkte, vice-chair of the Southwest Minnesota Workforce Development Board who is heading up the CEO group, met with about a dozen Tracy community leaders last week as part of a drive to educate them on the program and garner their support. There are currently 37 businesses in Lyon and Murray County that have committed to be investors in the program, as it was initially introduced in Marshall at Marshall High School and Slayton for Murray County Central High School.
“We have several people from the Marshall area, the Slayton area, and as we were developing we kept crossing paths with the Tracy School District and the businesses that supported Tracy and MCC, or Tracy and Marshall,” Goedtke said. “It’s all a big, intertwined web. It’s not about, ‘Do we want this for one community or the other?’ — if one community does well, it extends to the other communities because we’re so regionally-based now.”
According to the Lyon and Murray County CEO website, an investor’s annual investment of $1,000 a year for three years provides the necessary resources for current-year facilitator salary and other expenses and ensures the sustainability of the Lyon and Murray County CEO class for future students. The CEO program is looking to add to the current investors list to help grow the program.
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.