The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA

Lewisburg Region

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February 21, 2013

Election 2013: Two seek Republican nominations for Union County Coroner

By Evamarie Socha The Daily Item

LEWISBURG — Two Mifflinburg residents are tossing their hats in the ring to replace Union County’s longtime coroner, Wanda Walters, who will not seek re-election this year.

Walters confirmed Wednesday that she will retire from the office she’s held for 20 years.

Seeking the Republican nomination for the seat are Dominick Adamo and Tod Steese, both of Mifflinburg.

Adamo is a deputy coroner in Union County and owner of the Dominick T. Adamo Funeral Home, Mifflinburg. Steese is an assistant to the funeral director at the Roupp Funeral Home Inc., Mifflinburg, and a safety consultant with Select Security, Williamsport.

Adamo, a native of Clearfield, came to Mifflinburg in 2004 when he purchased the funeral home after working several years at a home in Lancaster.

The investigative part of the coroner’s job interests him, Adamo said. “I’ve worked with a lot of different county coroners in being a funeral director,” he said, “and I’ve seen some best practices and things I’d like to implement in this office.”

If elected, Adamo said he wants to get Union County in on a pilot project, an electronic death records system that the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Division of Vital Records plans to roll out in December. The system is a web portal that lets authorities access and contribute death certificate information, making for faster and more efficient communications among them. Lycoming County is using a similar system, Adamo said, and he’d like to explore its use here.

Adamo, 39, is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science, where he obtained a funeral directing degree. He has 15 years of experience in the mortuary sciences.

Adamo is president-elect of the Mifflinburg Rotary Club and a member of the Buffalo Valley Sportsman Club, Central Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association and Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association. He lives in Mifflinburg with his wife, Jennifer, and their daughter, Kathryn.

Steese wants the job, in part, to educate Union County’s youths on the dangers of driving impaired, be it drinking or drugs, texting or speeding, he said.

“In this county, we lost a lot of young persons last year in automobile accidents,” he said, many of which he responded to as a member of the Mifflinburg Hose Company.

“Every time I go to a fatal auto accident — and I’ve been on a lot of them — I want to be able to do something more to try to stop this,” he said. “In running for the coroner’s office, it’s something I can do to maybe help prevent this.”

Steese, 52, is a Mifflinburg native. He recently resigned as president of Mifflinburg Hose Company to focus on his campaign. He has been a firefighter for 34 years. He also has 15 years of law enforcement experience.

Steese has two children, a 27-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter. He works full-time from home with Select Security, of Williamsport, from which he would resign if elected.

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