Each spring, area students in the Southwest Minnesota CEO program debut individual businesses inspired from nine months of business visits, guest speakers, mentor discussions and working together in a class business.
The 18 students in this year’s Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (CEO) class debuted their individual businesses Wednesday, May 7, at the Big Top Tent Rentals in Luverne.
The students developed lines of merchandise or unique services.
Eight of this year's Southwest Minnesota CEO class are Luverne High School students.
LHS junior Jaydon Johnson combined his love for sports trivia into a game focused on local sports trivia in a business he calls “Grand Prairie Sports.”
He developed six different decks of cards. Each deck retails for $20.
“My family is very active in sports and, if you ask my parents (Ryan and Charlotte Johnson) and some other family members, they’d kind of say I’m a bit of a know-it-all,” he said.
Johnson said he has a knack for remembering random trivia such as which team won the college football championship in 2015.
“Sometimes I could tell you the score of that game and sometimes the players,” Johnson, 16, said. “My parents are blown away when I could tell them who we played in some (local) tournaments when I was in grade school. They’re like ‘I don’t even remember that.’”
For this retail game, Johnson focused on six high schools: Luverne, Hills-Beaver Creek, Pipestone, Adrian, Edgerton Public and Southwest Minnesota Christian in Edgerton.
He developed 42 to 52 trivia questions for each school complete with multiple choice answers from various sports records at that respective school.
“I tried to get a good mix from each school,” he said.
Not all the schools offer the same boys’ and girls’ sports, but he offered questions for each of the activities that are offered.
He found it hard to be inclusive.
“Like for Southwest (Minnesota Christian), they have a great basketball program, and not making it (trivia questions) so basketball dominant,” Johnson said.”That was tricky because there is so much rich history in that program.”
Johnson spent a month gathering questions and answers.
He visited each school talking with athletic directors and/or coaches, scouring trophy cases, searching online, and reading the banners hanging in the schools’ gymnasiums.
As a test, he bounced questions off his fellow CEO students.
“Some of them didn’t really know, but some did and they were like ‘Oh, you should make this question. Oh, I know this guy and he broke this record.’ So, I was able to get a little help.”
Johnson used the mascots and school colors for each of the trivia cards and the clear plastic packaging.
He worked with Quality Printing in Luverne to bring his game to reality.
“They’ve been awesome to work with,” Johnson said. “Originally I wanted (the game) to be the actual size of the cards to be like normal playing card size. I’m actually glad that I transitioned to being a square.”
He developed a social media page titled “Grand Prairie Sports,” where customers can contact him online for one or more of his trivia sets or by phone.
In the future, Johnson hopes to add more area schools to his trivia game offerings.
Other 2025 CEO students from LHS and their business names at the trade show included
•Payton Behr, Eighteen & Co.
•Connor Bose, Bose Printing & Apparel.
•Kasey Buss, Timeless Screens.
•Paula Martinez Penuelas, Midwest Connect.
•Morgan McTigue, HotMess Express.
•Jordyn Reisch, Sign It Your Way.
•Kianna Winter, Escentials.
Article and photo courtesy of the Rock County Star Herald