Lebanon Co. school board rivals find common ground on Election Day

Campbelltown, Pa. — Standing on either side of the entrance of the polling place at the Campbelltown Fire Department on Tuesday, rivals for Palmyra School Board seats Ryan Patrick and Mike Koval kept the competition – and conversation – cordial. 

“We’re running an exit poll,” Patrick told the Capital-Star. 

While volunteers inside were selling chicken noodle, ham-and-bean, and vegetable soup, Patrick and Koval asked voters on their way out of the polling place, with soup in hand, which one they had chosen. 

“Chicken noodle seems to be winning,” Koval said, adding that ham and bean soup was catching up.

Koval and Patrick agreed that the vegetable soup likely would remain in last place. 

The two said that in an effort to stay warm on the cold and damp Election Day, they too, had sampled the soups.

Waiting for voters to trickle in, Koval and Patrick discussed everything from soup to college football, but avoided trash-talking each other, an uncharacteristic display in an intensely heated time in politics. 

Despite being rivals for the same job, Koval and Patrick seemed to make the most of the situation. 

“If he [Koval] wins he knows I’m going to be up his a**,” Patrick joked, adding that the same would be true if he won.