The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Two more years of high school await Zicuria Ussery and, after that, college — Georgia Tech, she hopes — then maybe a career in industrial engineering.
In the meantime, the 16-year-old junior at Maynard Jackson High School in Atlanta has another matter to attend to: building her business.
Next spring, Ussery hopes to launch The Smoothie Shack, her idea for selling affordable healthy fruit drinks to fellow students after school and at extracurricular events.
She may be on to something. The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, an international non-profit organization, has picked Ussery as one of 27 national finalists, and the only Georgian, in the 2009 Oppenheimer Funds/National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge.
She emerged from a group of about 1,000 students nationwide who participated in regional competitions. Now, she’s headed to New York in October where she’ll try to win the $10,000 first-place prize awarded to the idea judged best.
Photo by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.