STAUNTON (Nov. 23, 2017) – The Macoupin County CEO program held its second annual alumni/investor breakfast Monday morning, Nov. 20, at Concordia Hall in Staunton, with a gourmet meal catered by Chef Colt Dean of Off the Wall Chef Service.

Current members of the CEO class used the breakfast as an opportunity to network with mentors, investors, and last year’s members, as well as some local elected officials.

Students Gabe Long of Carlinville and Lilly Booth of Staunton gave a presentation on why the program is important to them and announced this year’s class business: selling tickets to raffle off a hybrid golf cart/utility vehicle (Linhai Big Horn 200 GVX 2017 model).

“In your everyday school life, you don’t get to go out and go business to business almost every day,” said Booth. “We get to meet with people, see how they work their business, and see how they work as a person… We are independent. We aren’t told, hey, have your homework done this day. We are told, get it done, or don’t get it done. It’s you. You fly or fail, and usually we fly. We do pretty well as a team.”

“There is no experience better than this one,” said Long. “We don’t take it for granted, because we love it and we want to do the best job that we can with it.”

In addition, alumni of the program presented this year’s members with CEO program-branded laptop bags, which were gifts from the program’s board of directors.

Facilitator Pete Visintin said he plans to make the presentation of the bags from alumni to current students into an annual tradition at the breakfast. Tickets for the UTV raffle cost $10 each and will be sold by the students from now until February; to purchase tickets, contact any CEO student or email macoupinceo@gmail.com.

For more information, visit the program’s Facebook page at facebook.com/macoupinceo or macoupinceo.com.