Penn State board election is less contested

Could it be Happy Valley is happy again?

Ever since the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal roiled Pennsylvania State University, dozens of candidates have vied each year for the three open alumni seats on its board of trustees.

A record 80 or so candidates ran in spring 2012, a few months after Sandusky, a former assistant football coach, was indicted in the abuse of young boys, and President Graham B. Spanier and football coach Joe Paterno were ousted.

This year is different.

Only three candidates are running - essentially no contest.

"It's a huge vote of confidence in the alumni-elected trustees and the job we're doing," said William Oldsey, an educational publishing consultant who won an alumni seat in 2013. "The alumni I'm talking to are feeling like things have moved in the right direction."

Thousands of Penn State and Paterno supporters, including the alumni trustees, scored a major victory in January when, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the NCAA restored 112 football wins it had stripped from the school and agreed to allow the $60 million fine to remain in Pennsylvania for child protection services. The NCAA previously had restored football scholarships and lifted the bowl ban.

The alumni trustees also have pressed to have the university repudiate the investigative report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, which blamed Penn State leaders including Paterno and Spanier as conspiring to cover up Sandusky's abuse. Penn State president Eric Barron recently panned the report publicly.

But satisfaction may not be the only factor thinning the candidate slate.

Oldsey pointed out that it was tougher to run this year. Candidates needed 250 nominations from alumni to get on the ballot, up from 50 in past years.

"That was a game-changer," said Ryan Bagwell, a former journalist who has fought for access to public records around the scandal and who had run in previous years. "Fifty nominations was tough. . . . If you raise that threshold five times, you really have to have the backing of a large group."

There are nine alumni-elected seats on the 32-member board, and that won't change when the board expands to 38 in July. Three alumni seats turn over annually.

Another issue that may have kept the slate small is the influential endorsement by Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, a group formed in the aftermath of the scandal that has been highly critical of board leadership.

Thirteen people sought the group's endorsement this year, and the only three who ultimately ran were those who got it. They are incumbent Anthony P. Lubrano, a Glenmoore businessman; incumbent Ryan McCombie, a retired Navy SEAL captain from State College; and Robert J. Tribeck, a lawyer who led the Penn Stater group's critique of the Freeh report.

The group endorsed alumni candidates in each of the last three years and almost all were elected.

Lubrano, who won a seat in 2012, said his work is not done. Holding down tuition, seeing that Paterno is honored, and "making sure this university has the type of leadership that will first and foremost stand behind the university" are among issues he will press in a new term.

He doubts that changes in the nominating procedure are responsible for the small number of alums running.

"I like to think that alumni are pleased with the efforts that Capt. McCombie and I have provided, so they don't feel the need to replace us," he said.

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