Students form companies at Central Davis Junior By KAY JARVIS Caramel apples and braces are the stuff nightmares are made of. The combination is thought to be avoided at all costs, but some of the students at Central Davis Jr. with a high sense of adventure threw caution cau-tion to the wind when the home economics department and the students stu-dents enrolled in the ninth grade foods classes held their free enterprise enter-prise day. This is the third year running the students have had the opportunity to do some career exploration through a free enterprise project that's held twice a year, once a semester. Students first form companies consisting of four to five members. Each company then elects officers a president, vice president of advertising, a secretary-treasurer, and a purchasing manager. They invest their own money into the company by buying shares at a $1 per share. These funds are used to buy supplies, advertise, and purchase purch-ase a business license. Insurance is also available with a return of $.75 on the dollar in case of disaster, i.e. burned brownies or under-cooked suckers. The business license is purchased purch-ased from the home ec department. The president of each company presents their company idea to "mayor" of the school, Dr. Ross Poore, the principal. When the idea is approved, the members are then involved in marketing surveys, advertising, and producing food items to sell from their marketplace which is located in the home ec. rooms during lunch. Products sold this year included caramel apples, suckers, nachos, floats, ham and cheese crescents and nonalcoholic non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiris. When the selling began, throngs of teenagers converged on the marketplace mar-ketplace filling it quickly with buyers. The room became reminiscent reminis-cent of a packed sardine can. The suckers sold quickly and disappointment dis-appointment was loudly expressed when they were gone. Meanwhile the price of brownies dropped from 40 cents to 30 cents, an example of supply and demand in action. The sellers and the buyers persued the endeavor with verve. After the price lowering and a medium amount of begging from the vendors "Please, please, please buy...," the brownies sold out. (Is begging an effective marketing mar-keting technique? It seemed to work.) The project was successful and profitable. Lisa Hatch, president of the "Sweet Suckers and Chewy Krispie Treats" company estimated esti-mated that the company spent $14 in supplies and each member earned $9.30 in profit. Stacy Kennedy, Ken-nedy, treasurer, says she learned "business is fun." Becky Barlow was head of advertising and Lori Hales, secretary, kept track of records re-cords and inventory. Home Economics teachers Teresa Brooks and Ann Casper, feel the project gives students an opportunity to gain practical skills in business management and they learn how the market system works by showing the effects of supply and demand on price and profit. Mrs. Brooks also feels it's a good public relations tool for getting get-ting next year's students to sign up for home economics courses. Comments from participants range from "It's a lot harder work than I thought it would be," to "It was really exciting to make a profit." pro-fit." The profit from the sales were given to individual students in the companies. Stock in the company or an even distribution determined profits, depending on company policy.