Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/998957
T he sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are blooming: must be summer break.Time to step back, relax, enjoy the nice Wyoming weather and your much- deserved break from school. With the little extra time you will have this summer, I would ask that you consider helping our WEA-PACE-endorsed candidates for the Wyoming legislature and governor. There several ways you can help to elect our education-friendly candidates. First, make sure you know who WEA-PACE has endorsed in the upcoming primary; you can find this information on page 14. It is very important that we elect education- friendly people to the Wyoming legislature. As we have seen with the cuts to education funding, having pro-education members of the legislature is vital. So how can you help to ensure we elect our education friends? It can be as simple as talking to your family and friends about why they should vote for our WEA-PACE-endorsed candidates. As a trusted member of your community, you can help people understand why education is so important in this upcoming election. You can give them firsthand information about how education funding has been and will continue to be an important topic for our Wyoming legislature. You can contact the candidate and offer to put a sign in your yard, or you can even offer to ask your friends to put signs in their yards as well. If you are willing to get really involved in electing our education-friendly candidates, you can offer to go door-to-door for a candidate. There are different types of door-to-door campaigning you can do. The easiest is just a literature drop where you leave campaign materials about the candidate at each person's door. These materials are usually a door hanger or flyer about the candidate. The other type of door-to-door campaigning you can do for a candidate is to knock on the door and talk to people about why they should vote for the candidate; this also involves leaving some type of information about the candidate. This may sound intimidating, but if you do it with a friend, it is a lot easier. Once you have done two or three doors, you will find it is easy to talk to people about why education is important and why they should vote for the candidate that supports education in Wyoming. You are an educator, and who better to talk to people about why education is important in this election then you?! Calling your neighbors and reminding them to vote on election day is another way you can help our candidates. You can even offer to drive them to the polls on Election Day. If they do not want to or can't vote on August 21st, you can explain to them about how they can do absentee voting or early voting. Executive Director Sniffin's column on the next page explains how you can vote early or absentee. This election will have a direct effect on our future education funding in Wyoming, so please take some time this summer break to help elect education-friendly candidates to the Wyoming legislature. You can help us to ensure people vote in the primary on August 21st and vote for our WEA-PACE- endorsed candidates. Together we can and will make a difference. Kathy Vetter WEA President kvetter@wyoea.org Get Involved in Elections President's Message 1