GHENT — New board members for the Lyon County Republicans were chosen this weekend, during the party’s 2025 county convention in Ghent. On Saturday, delegates elected Rick Konold and Holly Lamote as the new co-chairs of the Lyon County Republicans. Konold and Lamote will each serve two-year terms.

Konold said it was good to see the turnout of about 30 people at the county convention, and he encouraged people to get involved with Republican grassroots efforts.

“All our welcome at our meetings,” Konold said.

“I’m looking forward to a very positive election cycle,” Lamote said of taking on a county co-chair role.

Delegates also elected two new board members for the Lyon County Republicans, Arlene Markell and Don Ginder.

In addition to business like board elections, county Republicans also heard from Tiffany Lesmeister-Knott, a Redwood County resident and Republican deputy chairwoman in Congressional District 7. Lesmeister-Knott said one of the main focuses going forward in CD 7 was flipping Democrat-held seats in the state Legislature.

“Those two seats, one’s the Senate seat up in Moorhead, and the other one’s the House seat in Moorhead,” she said. “There’s a lot of votes that we could flip, because that Senate district covers a lot of rural counties, and it covers Moorhead.”

In addition to state races, Minnesota Republicans were also interested in the U.S. Senate race, where Sen. Tina Smith has said she will not run for re-election, Lesmeister-Knott said.

“I think as we get closer to next November, more candidates will come out,” she said. However, she said it will be important for Republicans to all vote for the candidate that receives the party endorsement. “I think the biggest thing that we can do is, when those candidates come out and they get the endorsement, whether it was your candidate or not, I think the infighting within the Republicans has to stop.”

The CD 7 Republican convention for 2025 will be March 28-29, in Detroit Lakes.