Three candidates are competing in the May 20 primary election with hopes to replace current Butler County Coroner William Young III, who is retiring at the end of his term.

All three full-time funeral home directors, who are running on the Republican ticket, are vying for the four-year role that pays $86,710, oversees a nearly $800,000 budget.

John C. Hanovick, Korynne Young and Braden Fox each say they’ve already adapted to the coroner’s erratic schedule. Like the coroner, funeral home directors can be called at any time to a home or nursing facility, if a person dies.

All three also studied at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science, explained their experience working within a budget at their funeral homes and are members of various funeral directors associations.

The winner of the May 20 primary will proceed to the November ballot. No Democratic candidates are competing in the primary.

According to the current coroner, the coroner’s salary was raised from $73,500 to $86,710 in 2021 to align with the other row officer’s salaries. He said the coroner’s office has about six salaried employees and about six active special deputies who are paid per call.

The coroner’s office budgeted for expenditures of $859,483 in 2024 and projects expenditures totaling $797,104 for 2025, according to the county commissioners budget. Young said he expects the budget to decrease when the county’s morgue moves from its rented space in Young Funeral Home to the coroner’s office in Pullman Square.

The coroner’s 2023 annual report indicated his office was notified to 1,650 deaths and responded to about 211 coroner calls that year. In 2023, the office also approved about 1,060 cremation authorizations and approved 113 autopsies performed by a forensic pathologist called from Allegheny County.

Chief Deputy Coroner, Hanovick, touted his years of experience when recounting why he should be elected Butler County’s next coroner.

“I’ve been out on hundreds of calls …(and) have been in the death care business my whole life,” Hanovick said.

Hanovick, 65, started working in McDonald-Aeberli Funeral Home in Mars at 16 years old and has worked at the funeral home for about 42 years. He said he worked for the Aeberlis for about 27 years before they sold him the funeral home in 2003.

Hanovick is a lifelong resident of Mars, who graduated from Mars Area High School in 1978 and attended Butler County Community College before mortuary school.

“I thought I had seen everything as a funeral director until I started with the coroner’s office 11 year ago,” Hanovick said.

Coroner Young appointed Hanovick as chief deputy in 2014 after months of working as a special deputy then received his deputy coroner certification. Hanovick said he knew he wanted to be in the funeral business since he was eight years old for both the emotional and scientific aspects of the job.

“When you talk to these families, and we go to these scenes, it’s very difficult,” Hanovick said.

If elected as coroner, Hanovick plans to prioritize staff training and hire more special deputies to reduce response times. He said he learned mostly on the job and wants his employees to know more than he did going in, and he wants training procedures and paperwork to be streamlined and consistent.

“Every case is different. Every scene is different. You have to be observant. You have to be experienced,” Hanovick said.

Hanovick is most excited to see the morgue completed and in the same place as the coroner’s office. The county morgue operates out of Young Funeral Home, and the coroner’s office is located on Woody Drive in Pullman Square.

Hanovick enjoys juggling both the chief deputy coroner and funeral director roles, and he’s on the Quality EMS and Penn-Mar Plaza administrative boards. He was also treasurer of the Rich-Mar Rotary for 14 years.

“I put my heart and soul into the funeral home and into the coroner’s office,” Hanovick said. “Those are my big claims to fame.”

He married his wife Ann in 1984 and has two daughters.

Deputy Coroner Korynne Young graduated from Moniteau High School in 2018 and said she was voted most likely to never leave Moniteau.

“If you all think this is an insult to me, it’s not, because I’m never leaving,” Young said.

Young, 24, said she remembers going on coroner calls from a very young age with Coroner Young, her cousin, and caring for grieving families in her funeral home. She’s the funeral director of the William F. Young Funeral Home in West Sunbury and said she’s never considered a different career.

“It’s the highest honor to be called upon by a family to care for their loved one,” Young said.

Young received her funeral director’s license in 2021, and Coroner Young asked her to join the office in April 2022 before getting her deputy coroner certification in December. She said she’s been on numerous investigations and has seen how the job has changed.

“Death is changing,” Young said. “The way families grieve is changing. The way people have memorials are changing.”

Young said she’s seen burials decrease in the last 20 years and attributed it to fewer people growing up in religion with traditional methods to memorialize. She said the office signs more cremation authorizations today than in previous years, and she’s also seeing more unique death services like balloon and butterfly releases.

“Something important to me is experience in this office. No call is the same,” Young said.

Young plans to increase public education efforts on death trends and what the coroner’s office does if elected. She aims to share information with police and schools about drug and suicide trends to combat epidemics and provide more education around death. She used heart disease as an example of a top killer in the United States for which little educational material is distributed.

Young also aims to modernize technology and communication methods the coroner’s office uses to speed up reporting of deaths and death trends.

Young unwinds in her free time by being outdoors, kayaking on Lake Arthur, journaling and spending time with her friends and family. She said both sides of her family work in either the death or medical fields, which helps her cope with the job’s emotional demands.

“I take pride in knowing that my family has taken care of families in Butler … for over 50 years,” Young said.

Braden Fox, funeral director at Fox Funeral Home in Saxonburg, said he knew he wanted to enter the funeral industry in eighth grade and has had his eye on the county coroner role since he graduated from mortuary school.

“I always learned that there’s no substitute for hard work,” Fox said. “You get rewarded for the work you do.”

As a fourth-generation funeral director licensed for five years, Fox, 26, started working at the funeral home at 12 years old and assisting with funerals at 14. A 2017 Knoch High School graduate, he attended BC3 for two years before graduating from mortuary school in January 2020. Fox is also a member of the OGR Future Leaders, Order of the Golden Rule and the Cremation Association of North America.

He enjoys the unpredictability of the role and feels he’s equipped to be able to dedicate more time to the county than the average person.

“Showing up and getting the mail is about the only thing guaranteed for the day. Other than that, you never know what’s going to happen,” Fox said.

Fox grew up in Penn Township believing in hard work and family values. He said his family would have dinner together every night and make breakfast every Sunday. He recalled frequently working outdoors as a kid and looking forward to the first days of hunting and trout seasons.

Fox doesn’t like to make people wait. He said when a call comes into the funeral home, he’s usually on the scene within an hour and wants to add and train more deputies to make the coroner’s office the same.

“From what I’ve seen, the wait times are more than an hour and a half,” Fox said.

Fox said coroner scenes cannot be disturbed until the coroner arrives. The wait for the coroner can delay emergency services from responding to other incidents and keep roads closed for extended periods, Fox said.

“I want to make response times way faster than they are now,” he said.

Fox said he also aims to boost the department’s professionalism by instituting uniforms and branding coroner vans so they’re easily recognizable, and by providing continuing educational opportunities for deputies and office staff, staying informed about new developments in the field and public education about the coroner’s role.

“It’s not all just clinical. It’s about compassion as well,” Fox said.

Fox said his manual labor hobbies like farming, landscaping and his lumber business, BJF Enterprises LLC, help him balance the emotional demand of talking to grieving families. He said guiding families through the death process is a skill, and he feels blessed he can handle it. Fox also has experience working within a budget from managing the funeral home’s finances.

“When the coroner is called, it’s not planned, and you have to be able to help the family through it,” Fox said. “I pledge to be available and ready at a moment’s notice.”

More election coverage can be found here.