Colby-Sawyer College hosts a New Hampshire presidential primary symposium with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner on Monday, Oct. 19, at 12 p.m. in Room 201 of the Curtis L. Ivey Science Center. Gardner will discuss his role in overseeing the primary since the 1970s and maintaining the state’s first-in-the-nation status. The event is free and open to the public.

Gardner’s visit is in conjunction with N.H. Primary: Marketing the Presidency, a symposium for first-year students on the history of the first-in-the-nation primary and marketing strategies of past and present candidates. Led by Colby-Sawyer Assistant Professor of Business Administration Jonathan McCosh, D.B.A., the course features guest speakers including advocacy group directors, campaign managers, government officials and political experts.

Gardner, a lifelong Democrat, has served as New Hampshire’s secretary of state since 1976 and is currently the longest-serving secretary of state in the United States. He is also vice chair of the Public Advisory Board at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. In 2003, Gardner co-wrote Why New Hampshire? The First-in-the-Nation Primary State with the late Hugh Gregg, the 68th governor of New Hampshire. Gardner holds an undergraduate degree from the University of New Hampshire and graduate degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Harvard University.

For more information, contact Professor Jonathan McCosh at jonathan.mccosh@colby-sawyer.edu or 603.526.3402.