Future entrepreneurs head into the ‘Shark Tank’ at metro Atlanta school

ATLANTA — Some metro area high school students are getting ahead in the business world, and on Monday they won a contest to prove it.

Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen was at Booker T. Washington High School in southwest Atlanta, where the teens were in the ‘Shark Tank,’ learning from one of the city’s most successful businessmen.

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H. James Dallas knows a good idea when he hears one.

“Yes! I always said life begins when you say ‘Go.’ Go does not have an age to it,” Dallas said.

On Wednesday, he congratulated the winners of the first Booker T. Washington High School Pitchfest, patterned after ‘Shark Tank’, which airs on Channel 2.

“Yes! I actually watched it last night with my mother,” Senior Tashyra Lyles said.

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“I had a student who would pitch business ideas to me every day,” Principal William Wade said.

Wade says they lost that student to gun violence. But his memory lives on with the contest, and with one of the winning ideas.

Sophomore Tiara Poole wants to start a clothing brand to help the anti-gun violence movement.

“It’s not just to make money. We’re here to spread a message,” Poole said.

Dallas is sure the teenage entrepreneurs will go far. He graduated from Washington High back in ‘78, and became a multi-millionaire.

“Oh, I can see myself bankrolling a lot of them! I’m here today because people at Booker T. Washington bankrolled me,” Dallas said.

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Winners each collected $1,000, a class on how to create an LLC, and the money to file for it.

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