While Government of the Student Body executives and senators represent Iowa State this weekend at the Big 12 Leadership Conference, they will make a bid for the second year in a row to host the next annual conference. About 15 GSB representatives will make the trip to Stillwater, Okla., where Oklahoma State University is hosting the four-day conference. The conference gives student-government leaders from the 12 schools an opportunity to share ideas, problems and solutions from their campuses. Last year, GSB members made a presentation to other student leaders to have this year’s conference in Ames, but the ISU bid was defeated by a single vote. This year, GSB will give a more professional presentation to illustrate the advantages of hosting the conference in Ames, said Andy Tofilon, co-director of intergovernmental affairs. “A lot of these people probably have never been to Iowa,” Tofilon said. “We want to be sure they can come up and see what we have to offer.” Dave Sims, engineering, said Iowa State has a good chance to receive the bid because only a few other schools have the same interest in hosting the conference. “We think our only competition will be Baylor, Texas Tech and maybe Missouri,” Sims said. “We don’t want to make a lot of plans before we know if we will get the bid, but we feel pretty comfortable with what we have.” The presentation will focus on three points of Iowa State that would make it an ideal host for the conference, including the university’s history, academics and campus, Tofilon said. “We’re one of the three best campuses in the country, and we want to show it off to the other schools in the Big 12,” he said. Last spring, GSB allocated $1,000 to itself for transportation and registration for the conference, said Steve Medanic, GSB finance director. The amount complies with a series of new funding criteria, which set a spending cap for conferences at $1,000, depending on the number of people in the organization. To stay under the spending cap, Medanic said, GSB is sending a smaller delegation to the conference this year. “We feel that we should hold ourselves to the same criteria that we hold everyone else to,” said Alex Olson, vice chairman of the finance committee. The chance to host the Big 12 Leadership Conference would let student leaders from around the country get a closer look at Iowa State, Sims said. “We’re extremely excited to host this conference if we win this bid,” he said. “Iowa State definitely deserves a crack at this.”