{"id":2572,"date":"2026-06-16T04:22:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T04:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2026-06-16T04:58:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T04:58:58","slug":"joe-cook-auditor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/joe-cook-auditor\/","title":{"rendered":"Spencer County Democratic Party Announces Candidate for Spencer County Auditor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"284\" src=\"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Joe-Cook-headshot-300x284.jpg\" alt=\"Joe Cook, Democratic candidate for Spencer County Auditor.\" class=\"wp-image-2573\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1;object-fit:contain;width:192px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Joe-Cook-headshot-300x284.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Joe-Cook-headshot-1024x969.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Joe-Cook-headshot-768x727.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Joe-Cook-headshot-1536x1454.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Joe-Cook-headshot-2048x1939.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The Spencer County Democratic Party is excited to announce the addition of <strong>Joe Cook<\/strong> of Santa Claus as the Democratic candidate for Spencer County Auditor on the 2026 ballot.&nbsp;Joe lives with his wife, Lisa (Nord), and their son, Martin, an 8th grader at Heritage Hills Middle School. Joe and Lisa also have a daughter, Olivia, who is a 2026 graduate from Heritage Hills and currently majors in chemical engineering at Purdue University.&nbsp; Lisa is the Developmental Preschool Teacher at Nancy Hanks Elementary and has been involved in early childhood education for more than a decade.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joe served as Campus Minister at the University of Evansville from 1995-2002 and as Alumni Director at Saint Meinrad Seminary &amp; School of Theology from 2002-2010. He was Program Coordinator at the Institute for Priests and Presbyterate at Saint Meinrad from 2010-2017. He worked as an Internal Process Auditor at Jasper Engines and Transmissions from 2017-2020 and then as Executive Director of the Evansville District of Society of St. Vincent de Paul from 2020 until retiring in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joe is a 1986 graduate of Reitz Memorial High School.&nbsp; After high school graduation, he earned a B.A. in Communications and Theater Arts from St. Joseph&#8217;s College in 1990 and an M.A. in Catholic Thought and Life from Saint Meinrad School of Theology in 1993.&nbsp; He later obtained an M.S. in Management and Leadership from Western Governors University in 2017.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joe attends St. Martin I Catholic Church in Chrisney and is a member of the St. Bernard\/St. Martin I conference and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of which he is the Evansville Diocesan Council Vice President.  He has also served as a former assistant girls&#8217; soccer coach at Heritage Hills Middle School.&nbsp; While working at Jasper Engines and Transmissions, Joe was recognized by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) as a Certified Quality Auditor, specializing in assessing processes, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring that operations comply with regulatory and industry standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spencer County Democratic Chairman, Dan Wilkinson, said &#8220;The auditor serves as the chief financial officer in county government and county officials frequently look to the auditor for day-to-day operational assistance, information, and advice. Joe&#8217;s educational background, training, and leadership experiences make him the ideal candidate for this very important position.&nbsp; The Spencer County Democratic Party is excited to add Joe Cook to our ticket and we look forward to helping elect him as our next Spencer County Auditor!&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Spencer County Democratic Party is excited to announce the addition of Joe Cook of Santa Claus as the Democratic candidate for Spencer County Auditor on the 2026 ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,57,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-candidate-information","category-election-2026","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2592,"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions\/2592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spencerdemocrats.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}