The goal of Campaign School, Indiana Farm Bureau’s workshop for candidates and their election teams, is to help candidates learn to run an effective campaign.

But for INFB, it’s also part of the organization’s effort to connect with ag-friendly candidates and help them get elected.

This year’s Campaign School was held July 29-30 at INFB headquarters and was led by Cody Lyon of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Lyon is managing director of advocacy and political affairs at AFBF and has more 20 years of experience in grassroots mobilization, advocacy strategy and stakeholder engagement. 

Fourteen people participated in the intensive, two-day workshop, which included sessions on campaign strategy, fundraising, finance and media training. 

“I came on behalf of our local Republican Party for Delaware County,” said Aubrey Crist. “We are just looking for different ways to help our local candidates in their campaigns. I think some of the most important things that we got from it was related to the mock interviews and how candidates can come off when asked questions – how to respond to them, what you should and shouldn’t do.”

Communications training was an important component for Coy Travis, who is running for Floyd County Superior Court 3 judge. The most valuable lesson, he said, was learning how to simplify his messages to voters.

“Honing down my message to something that’s easy for the voters to understand, getting that 25-words-or-less meaning of why I’m running, getting it down to something simple” will make him a better candidate, Travis said, and help him connect better with voters, Travis said.

Crist added that the general information on campaigns will also be very useful.

“It will also help us evaluate why we struggle in certain offices getting our candidates elected,” she said. “We can go back and really review our candidates to see what they can do better.”

“I can tell you that candidates who come to this are going to learn so many things to make them a better candidate,” Travis added. “I’ve already told my team that this was worth its weight in gold.”