300 students to pitch business ideas at Wiggins entrepreneurship fair

More than 300 middle and high school students turned Wiggins High School into a daylong marketplace of business ideas, bringing poster-board pitches, business plans and financing strategies to the fifth annual Entrepreneurship Fair at 201 Tiger Way Drive.

The fair drew students from 17 schools across Weld, Morgan, Phillips and Logan counties, giving Logan County families a front-row view of how school-based entrepreneurship is becoming a practical path for rural students. The competition split entrants into two divisions, middle school for grades 6 through 8 and high school for grades 9 through 12, with individuals and entrepreneur teams both eligible to compete.

Each division carried $3,000 in cash prizes, for a total of $6,000 in awards. Judges scored projects on the strength of the written business plan, interview performance, booth presentation, financing strategy and the network of people or resources behind the venture. Top finalists moved into a final Shark Tank-style round, where judges decided which student businesses would receive cash investments.

Generation Schools Network and Ogallala Commons organized the event as more than a one-time contest. Ogallala Commons describes its youth entrepreneur fairs as morning-to-afternoon events in which students bring either a conceptual idea or a ready-to-go enterprise and are judged on a portfolio, interview, booth presentation and launch strategy. That approach is designed to build leadership, public-speaking skills and real-world business know-how before students leave high school.

The fair also fits the region’s broader economic profile. Past student ventures have included CB Custom Woodworking, A Bite of Joy and HTwoPad, a mix that mirrors the hands-on trades, food businesses and practical problem-solving common across northeast Colorado. Earlier fairs also featured student businesses in candles, clothing, auto towing and repair, showing how young entrepreneurs often start with the industries and needs they already know at home.

The Wiggins event has grown into a recurring regional tradition, with earlier fairs drawing students from Wiggins, Brush, Fort Morgan, Weldon Valley, Roosevelt High School, Eaton High School, Weld Central, Platte Valley and Holyoke. At a 2024 fair, Media Logic Radio owner Wayne Johnson spoke to students about his own path in entrepreneurship and persistence. In Holyoke, junior high students later competed in the same program and saw a team called Happy Hands earn a profit of $800 with packaged hand sanitizer. For Logan County students, the fair offered the same message: a rural classroom idea can become a business with customers, judges and real money attached.