Steven L. Craig is a successful developer with national name recognition and presumably the wherewithal to spend as he wants. For part of it, he’s chosen Vicksburg.

The choice came as the company of which he is CEO, Craig Realty Group of Newport Beach, Calif., put money where the proverbial mouth is — in a business where new college graduates, already schooled about business operations, accounting and marketing, became, as Craig put it, “immersed in entrepreneurism at the earliest age possible.”

Executives at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and professors at the Steven L. Craig School of Business at Missouri Western State University picked the best of three business plans for a store in Vicksburg. The idea was to teach the writers of the winning plan through hands-on application how to run a business. Immerse them, Craig said.

And so they are immersed. Brady Ellis and TyAnn Williamson, both 20-something Midwesterners, are here, managing a store at the Outlets at Vicksburg. Their hands definitely are on the goods, from early mornings to late evenings as they put their school-learned knowledge to use by cooking, cleaning, keeping books and serving customers with intentions of one day owning a big chunk of the sweet deal.

Like so many of the German, Chinese, Lebanese and Italian immigrants generations before, these two transplants are learning how to operate a business in Vicksburg. They’re immersed.

Ellis and Williamson are learning; Vicksburg has another store; residents and tourists have another place to stop. Sounds like a good plan all the way around. Maybe others can learn from it, even try it. After all, it sure looks and smells like a sweet deal.