Prominent business leaders and government officials – including Richard Cordray, director of the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – are scheduled to appear, along with training and discussion panels, networking events and the year’s Best in Business Awards ceremony. Most conference sessions are to be held at the Information and Communications Technology Complex on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), a few blocks northwest of downtown Indianapolis.

The town known for its Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the Indianapolis 500 auto race, will be the location for SABEW's 500 Minutes of Skills Training, a prime opportunity for business reporters and editors to pick up tips on covering sports, nonprofits, health care, immigration and a new wave of American austerity measures, along with sessions on turning beat reporting into a book, entrepreneurial journalism and strategies for covering a single company.

A few conference highlights

• Jeff Belskus, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

• Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

• James T. Morris, president, NBA Indiana Pacers.

• Steve Russell, founder, chairman and CEO of Celadon Trucking, one of the c ountry’s largest freight trucking firms with international operations.

• Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.

• SEC Chair Mary Schapiro.

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray.

• Footnoted.com Founder and Editor Michelle Leder.

• New York Times Contributing Business Writer & Author Diana Henriques.

• 17th annual Best in Business Awards Reception, March 17.

• Ford Motor Co.’s senior marketing leader, James Farley Jr., who will engage in a conversation with Thomson Reuters’ deputy editor-in-chief, Paul Ingrassia, a Pulitzer Prize-winning financial journalist and author, most recently, of “Crash Course: the American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster,” published by Random House in January 2010.

Evening receptions are planned at the city’s hallowed NCAA Hall of Champions and the Rhythm! Discovery Center, a hands-on ode to the percussive arts. The conference will be held just over a month after the 2012 Super Bowl, which was played at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Early-bird registration, which ends February 23, is $299 for SABEW members, $349 for non-members, $75 students. Afterward prices go up to $349 members and $399 non-members.

Register for the conference here at EventBrite at http://sabewindy2012.eventbrite.com. Book accommodations at the University Place Conference Center and Hotel at the special SABEW per-night rate of $139 single, $159 double, (800) 627-2700 or http://www.universityplace.iupui.edu. Book your rooms now: This rate ends Friday, Feb. 24.

For general information about SABEW, write: sabew@sabew.org.

For sponsor and exhibitor opportunities, please email Sue Davis of the SABEW staff, or call her at 602-496-7862.