As his campaign for Carbon County coroner began, Mahoning Township's Robert Miller Jr. was given a piece of advice by his boss and sitting coroner Bruce Nalesnik.

Run a clean campaign.When all the votes were tallied Tuesday evening and he had defeated challenger Daniel Blazosky by a 6,128 to 5,546 vote, Miller took solace in the fact he had lived up to that challenge."I never had anything negative to say about my opponent and that's what I'm most proud of," Miller said. "I'm glad it's over though. I basically ran on the experience matters platform and I think that really pulled me through."Miller ran as a Republican, but in actuality he's a Democrat. He won in the primary as a write-in candidate on the Republican ticket.The move presented a unique challenge during the campaign."The Democrats didn't know how to handle me and the Republicans really didn't want to put me on any of their stuff, so I basically ran alone," Miller said. "It was a lot of hard work but I went door-to-door and I think that really meant a lot to people."As a deputy coroner for almost three decades, Miller plans to take a close look at the office to see how "he can build upon Nalesnik's success.""Bruce did a great job over 20 years," he said. "We have a bag in the trunk with everything we need to do an investigation. Under Bruce, we also got a computer program to print our own death certificates."One thing Miller will look at is staffing the office with dependable deputies."A lot of the deputies on the list are giving it up," he said."I think we have around 11 right now, but the goal is to make sure we have good ones that you can depend on to go out in any situation. You can't just pull deputies off the street. We'll take them out and they'll learn with us, but they have to have a good knowledge coming in."Despite a challenging campaign and a close election, Miller said he wouldn't change a thing."When I look back at it all, it was worth it."