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| While
we don't know the names of all the
Bonners Ferry High School students in
this picture, there are a few older
graduates who are very proud to be
standing with them; Panhandle State Bank
president Dave Walter, Anita
Stockdale-Woods and Craig Anderson,
holding a contribution to the future;
Jim Marx and Sandy Ashworth ... knowing
that their contribution is going to be a
boon ... and that these kids will be the
wave of a good, bright, and proud
future. |
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Young entrepreneurs get
a chance to shine
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November 21, 2011 |
By Mike Weland
When I was a young lad in middle school many
years ago, one of my teachers challenged my
fellow students and I to imagine a product or
service our small town might benefit from,
imagine how we might promote it, and, with a few
hand-written notes and drawings, demonstrate how
we might launch a business.
I flunked the class ... I came up with "INSTANT
H2O! ... Just add water!" My proposed product
was a great idea, but it didn't have "legs."
After buying a case or two of my empty cans at
$.10 each, my customers came to realize that
they already owned, with every empty container
in their house, pretty much the same product I
offered, and it was free. Just add water.
Most of my potential customers went out and
bought pet rocks instead, and though I had a
great label ... I found no customers.
In Oklahoma, going through a drought at the
time, I thought my idea would be a sure winner,
but it didn't gain much traction and I became a
reporter instead of an entrepreneur. Had I known
computers were coming, I would have attempted
instead to sell $6 cans of air.
At Bonners Ferry High School, kids challenged as
I once was have to come up with imaginative
ideas, but a new word has been thrown in to the
challenge ... "viable," and Panhandle State Bank
and the Boundary County Library have helped one
such virtual idea, a Main Street store called
"Under the Sun," become reality.
"Not only is it an immense draw for locals,"
librarian Sandy Ashworth said, "but it is a
noted destination business that has won the
state Department of Commerce's award for Best
Entrepernurial Business of the Year."
Panhandle State Bank's support has brought new
equipment upgrades at Bonners Ferry High School
and new tools that every interested student
might learn and apply ... tools that even a year
ago might have been unimaginable, but with
which, in the hands of imaginative students, the
future will be paved.
When I "invented" Instant H20 back in the mid
1970s, I had to design the packaging with
colored pencils and "type up" my proposal on a
manual Underwood typewriter and I knew ...
thought ... that what I was concocting was all
tongue in cheek.
In retrospect, I may have become a rich
entrepreneur had I gone with the idea.
My mother bought me a pet rock for Christmas
that year, paying $3. I appreciated it, as it
skipped across the water fairly well. I found
several rocks along the shore that skipped
better ... but it was the thought that counted
most.
In hind sight, I'd have preferred a pair of warm
socks, and perhaps to have had the opportunity
for my misguided idea to have been considered by
someone other than my mother, who had no
imagination at all.
"We're working to put funding where it can have
the greatest impact on our community," said
Panhandle Bonners Ferry branch manager Carol
Julian. "And that starts with our children."
It's not often you hear the people of a bank say
that, and it's more rare yet to know that the
bank officials saying it happen to be the kids
we grew up with.
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