INDIANAPOLIS – Purdue University Extension will examine the business opportunities and impediments affecting rural Indiana at the Indiana Rural Summit Nov. 18-19 at the University Place Conference Center and Hotel at IUPUI in Indianapolis.

            Entrepreneurship, regional cooperation and rural economic policy will be discussed. “We’ll be looking out the windshield instead of the rearview mirror, thinking about what rural Indiana will be and could be,” said Sam Cordes, co-director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development.

            Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman will be among the keynote speakers. Others are Charles Fluharty, president and CEO of the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri; Dave Ivan, an economic development specialist at Michigan State University; and Ed Morrison, an economic policy advisor at PCRD.

            Registration is $150 per person and registration can be made at www.in.gov/ocra/ruralsummit.htm.

            Sponsors include Ball State University, Indiana Farm Bureau, Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, Indiana Rural Development Council, Indiana State Department of Agriculture, Indiana State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency and USDA Rural Development.