Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Franchising Arkansas
TENNIS STAR ADVOCATES ENTREPRENEURSHIP
FARMINGTON — In October, senior Coleman Warren and his tennis partner Payton Maxwell became the first Farmington doubles team to win the 5A West Conference tournament.
The pair entered the 5A State tennis tournament as a No. 3 overall seed, which is where they finished, a feat lauded by Farmington tennis coach Denver Holt.
“If you’re able to be placed in the top four, that means something based on how the state tournament is seeded,” Holt said. “They seed the top four, then start placing everybody else based on different criteria.”
“Something I talked to the kids about was, knowing we’re moving to 4A after this, I stressed the importance of being the first 5A West champions, maybe the only 5A West champions ever in tennis,” Holt said.
Boys State
Warren is also senior class president and served as one of Farmington’s delegates to Boys State held May 28 - June 2. During that conference he campaigned for Boys Nation senator to represent Arkansas at Washington, D.C.
In his speech Warren asked delegates to picture driving a blanket road in a rural part of Arkansas.
“My dad used to call it the twisting, turning road,” Warren said.
His word picture includes a Baptist church, post office, gas station, and green highway sign that greets motorists, ‘Tilley, population 37.”
“Tilley, Ark., is where my dad was from,” Warren said. “He was raised there his entire life and they instilled ideals in him of having family values, not judging your fellow man, and having strong faith.”
The elder Warren instilled those values in his son, who was raised with similar ideals. Friendships invited new perspectives like switching doubles partners from pairing with Caleb Lipford as a junior to having Maxwell alongside him on the court as a senior.
“I also have two of my best friends that completely challenged all of the things that my dad had told me,” Warren said. “They are completely opposite of me and they have made me evaluate my opinions, why do I believe the things that I believe, the things I’ve been brought up to, you know, as a child.”
Warren said he learned to self-evaluate, to create his beginnings, an asset he felt is representative of Arkansas.
“We are so diverse here, and we all have different perspectives,” Warren said.
He thinks a key to Arkansas is entrepreneurship, and considers northwest Arkansas the entrepreneurship capital of the world. As a member of Farmington’s Distributive Education Club of America (DECA) Warren and friends decided in the last semester of their junior year that they were going to become the best in the world at creating franchises.
The boys put in eight to 10 hours every Saturday night often laboring from 4:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. The group thought when they went to Anaheim, Calif., to present their business project they were going to win. Warren related mixed emotions when they didn’t come away with a prize.
“It was such a disappointment, of course, because it showed that all of that dedication, all of that building of leadership toward this didn’t work out,” Warren said.
Yet, Warren came away realizing that if a person dedicates himself, he still gains from applying his efforts in becoming diligent as a business person.
“It built my vision capabilities, it built my knowledge of business, it built my knowledge of entrepreneurship,” Warren said. “And we still placed in the top four percent in the world at this conference and I think that represents the Arkansas, the American dream, the land of opportunity, Arkansas’ ability to have these entrepreneurship values.”