OKFB hosts inaugural SAE CEO Challenge

Oklahoma Farm Bureau hosted the first-ever SAE CEO Challenge pitch contest on Friday, Nov. 6, at the organization's 85^th annual meeting in Oklahoma City.

A partnership with Oklahoma FFA, the SAE CEO Challenge is a program designed to help students who have an existing entrepreneurship supervised agricultural experience program build their businesses while inspiring students who do not yet operate their own business enterprise to understand the importance of entrepreneurship while developing their business skills.

The program combines a customized high-school classroom curriculum with the pitch contest held at OKFB's annual meeting, where six participants had the opportunity to pitch their supervised agricultural experience in front of a set of judges for the chance to win up to $10,000 for their SAE project.

The students who competed each submitted a business plan, pitch deck and other documents related to their recorded entrepreneurship SAE. Each participant gave a seven-minute pitch and fielded questions for an additional five minutes.

Arena Wells of the Stratford FFA chapter won the inaugural contest with her company, Cranchy Girl Granola, a line of health-conscious granola made with local ingredients and free from refined sugars. Wells received the top prize of $10,000 to put toward expanding her SAE.

Grace Coblentz of the Choteau-Mazie FFA chapter received second place and a $5,000 prize for her horticulture enterprise, Graceful Acres, and Leo Enlow of the Sapulpa FFA chapter received third place and a $1,000 prize for his auctioneering business, LEO Auction Services.