By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer  

Getting 9- and 10-year-olds excited about city zoning can be a challenge, but it was one Savage City Administrator Barry Stock adored.

 “When ever he teaches, he teaches fun lessons and we do fun things like work sheets to make it interesting,” said Kari Cammerrer.Junior Achievement: City
Administrator Barry Stock teaches a
Junior Achievement class to third-
graders at Glendale Elementary
School.

Equipped with a clear-orange trimmed Junior Achievement bag, worksheets and a wealth of knowledge, Stock recently taught a five-week Junior Achievement course to third-graders at Glendale Elementary School.

“It went really well, it was fun,” Stock said, “the kids were very excited about having someone in the classroom to talk about the city.”

Talking about the city included teaching the young minds the basics of city planning like understanding and distinguishing the business, residential, multi-purpose, industrial and agricultural zones; learning about blue prints and builders; essentials for starting a restaurant; the role of a newspaper and the economic impact of a business.

“I gave them real-life examples. I asked them how much they thought an acre of land would cost along County Road 42 … they guessed about a hundred bucks,” Stock said with a laugh. “Man, were they surprised.”

Stock also said the lessons allowed students to understand some of the difficulties of laying out a city.

“I asked them about putting zones next to each other … ‘Would you want to go to school next to an industrial plant? Or near a busy road?’ It was like seeing a light bulb go off,” he said.

The kids agreed.

Ethan Brua said he enjoyed learning about the history of the city and what makes the city work. “It’s fun and real,” he said. “Savage was once named Hamilton.”

Students also seemed to enjoy learning about how a newspaper works, they were separated into groups and were responsible for producing different sections of the fictitious paper.

“The newspaper was my favorite,” Cammerrer said. “It was fun to realize what sections had different things in it.”

The 9-year-olds agreed it was a good break in the week to have someone come to their classroom and learn about the workings of a city.

Junior Achievement is a national organization aimed at educating students of all ages with age-appropriate topics. The organization connects students with business people to give the kids a hands-on learning opportunity.

 Keighla Schmidt can be reached at kschmidt@swpub.com.