CROW AGENCY - Zack Faraway always wanted to run his own business.

The 25-year-old Crow Agency man liked the idea of owning a coffeehouse. An artist, he thought of combining it with a gallery, on-site computers and a Web site to market consigned jewelry.

He figured the concept might work in Crow Agency, where nothing like it presently exists. He came pretty close to just opening something up.

And then he heard about an entrepreneurship class through Little Big Horn College's extension office. Now, 12 weeks later, he is one of 22 members of the Crow Tribe graduating with a certificate and the knowledge of how to go about starting his own business.

"Without (the class), I probably would have tried it, but I'm pretty sure I would have had some difficulty," Faraway said, sitting among some of his classmates inside the college's cultural center. "The course has been very helpful, to help me pay attention to details. It's helped me create a stronger business plan."

He even came up with a name: Somewhere Faraway.

The 12-week "Indianpreneurship" course was designed to help students toward their goal of creating Indian-owned and -operated businesses. That included learning how to develop a business concept and understanding all the steps necessary for creating a successful enterprise.

But that's only half the reason for the class, said Jackie Old Coyote who, with Jackie Yellowtail, co-taught the three-hour-per-week course.

"My goal was to see a network of people who could learn from each other and support each other," Old Coyote said.

The success of that goal becomes pretty apparent as Zack and his classmates talk about their hopes and dreams - and making them come true.

After three months together, they talk and chat easily with one another and are all familiar with one another's plans and willing to share their dreams.

Class member Randy Real Bird, 57, is a heavy-equipment operator for Riverside Contracting. But in his spare time, he enjoys team roping at area rodeos.

"I always had this goal of selling tack out of a trailer at fairs and rodeos," he said. "Being around rodeos, I know what the guys need."

Now with this class, he has a road map of how to make his goal a reality. The class helped him especially to narrow his dream to a workable plan and to pin down where he might find funding. It's also given him the courage to try.

"I learned that everybody has a dream," Real Bird said. "You can make that dream happen by taking chances and by not being afraid to take risks."

Raphaelle Real Bird, Randy's wife, came along to the class to learn how she might help Randy run his business. Then she realized that she might have an idea of her own to pursue.

Raphaelle, who, with Randy, lives in the St. Xavier area, taught elementary school for 29 years. She retired two years ago and now teaches the Crow language in the Crow studies program at Little Big Horn College.

Teachers often tap into her language expertise, to teach Crow to their students or to create a bulletin board with the native language. Now Raphaelle is looking into writing curriculum and publishing it, either as a nonprofit or a for-profit enterprise.

"This is something I always wanted to do," she said. "I never looked at it from a business point of view before."

Frank He Does It, 30, sells Kirby vacuums. He also has a degree in business management from Rocky Mountain College.

A year ago, he moved back to Crow Agency from Billings. Now he and his fiancée, Kathy, have a dream to open a horse-boarding business, FK Trails and Corrals, on 40 acres of land a mile west of the Little Big Horn Battlefield.

"With this class, there's been some good brainstorming," he said.

"It's given me lots of insight. We're ready now, and we're going to try to get a loan from a bank."

If that doesn't happen, he discovered through the class other financing options. The class also helped him to do other necessary research, like how other similar businesses have done, what type of pricing strategy he should use and what his cash flow will look like for the first year.

"We're pretty excited. Tired, but excited," He Does It said. "We still have a lot of things to do, as far as improvements on the land, but once we do that, I think we'll be ready to start."

All of these businesses incorporate one other element into them, Old Coyote said.

"The first day we spent time talking about, making sense of, Crow values - of serving Crow people," she said. "Then we took them through very clear steps to a business plan."