Before the 2017 Greene County Coroner Election, Gene Rush didn’t have any political experience.

Rush, who previously spent more than 30 years as the director of Rush Funeral Home in Rogersville, Pennsylvania, pursued the Coroner’s office last year as a Republican. After running unopposed in the primary May 16, Rush faced off with incumbent Gregory Rohanna, who had been in office for more than two decades.

Rush defeated Rohanna by four votes—3,555 to 3,551—and was sworn into office Dec. 21, before taking over in January.

For Rush, the hotly contested election was quite an introduction to politics.

“It was an emotional roller coaster. Not knowing what was going to come of it,” said Rush. “For somebody that’s never been in politics before, it’s quite an experience.”

Rush said despite such a close election, he hasn’t experienced any negative feedback from voters.

“Every place myself and my chief deputy have been, it’s been ‘thank you very much.’” Rush said. “It’s been a very well received election…We want to take that as a good thing.”

Tina Kiger, Greene County elections director, said that her office hasn’t experienced any hostility from the result, either.

“There hasn’t been any controversy at all,” Kiger said. “Not in my office anyway.”

Rush’s primary goal as coroner is to make his office transparent. He hopes for Greene County citizens to understand his role and know that his office is willing to address any questions or concerns.

“A lot of people do not know what a coroner does,” Rush said. “So, one of my main goals was to get the word out as to what we do, what we’re able to do, and what we can’t do. I want to be able to answer anybody’s questions that can call me.”

Chief Deputy Coroner Martin Yoskovich has known Rush for nearly four decades. Yoskovich agreed it is essential for himself, Rush and the rest of the office to be accessible, as well as cooperative.

“Accessibility is probably the biggest thing,” Yoskivich said. “We’re going to strive for our response time to be as quick as possible to a particular scene…We’ve been trying to work diligently with the state police, the local police, the fire departments and, most importantly, the families that we serve.”

One way Rush aims to increase transparency is through cooperation with the county’s efforts to combat the opioid crisis. Rohanna didn’t release statistics about the overdose rates in Greene County last year, leading to a lawsuit from the Observer-Reporter. Rush recently released the data on last year’s overdose rate and found that the deaths caused by overdoses dropped from 20 to 13 in the past year. Although Rush isn’t sure what caused the decrease, he hopes the trend continues in 2018.

“You can only keep your fingers crossed,” Rush said. “We have no guarantees. I’ve seen other county reports that have far more than we do.”

Rush said he believes it is essential to emphasize education to help fix the county’s drug problems.

“We need to get to the young people—not even teenagers, but before that,” Rush said. “Because we’ve had [reports of] drug users that were 11 and 12 years old. That’s not natural. There’s a reason for that, and we need to find that out and at the same time educate people as to why that is or if that’s a problem and locate the areas it’s happening in and that kind of thing.”

As coroner, Rush wants to be thought of as more than the responsibilities his job entails.

“I want to be more than a name on a desk,” Rush said. “Because a coroner can do more. He can help prevent this as much as he can invest in it. So, I want to be that person. I just don’t want to be ‘oh, somebody died, we call the coroner.’ There’s more to the office than that, and that’s what I want when I think transparency.”