College is a major time for political awareness. More than ever, people are exposed to other people they may not have been to in their hometown and are encouraged to think outside of the mindset that they had in high school. With that, any news surrounding politics is always a hot button issue.
Recently, Bob Rudy officially went onto the ballot for the PA House of Representatives and specifically the 97th Legislative District, which is in Lancaster county. Rudy is running as the Democratic candidate against the incumbent. Rudy works at the college as an adjunct professor at the School of Graduate and Professional Studies in corporate communication and teaches multicultural communications, international communications, and interpersonal communications.
Rudy has also gotten many degrees surrounding effective communication throughout his lifetime, including an associate degree in police science from Harrisburg Area Community College, a bachelor’s degree in communications from Penn State, and a master’s in education specifically concentrated in training and development. Outside of Etown he taught at the Lancaster county Career and Technology Center and Millersville University, which everyone in the world could benefit from at Elizabethtown College. Such experiences have allowed him to consider other’s perspectives on issues.
Despite not growing up in the area, Rudy is heavily connected to it.Rudy has lived in Lancaster county since January 2008. He has been teaching communication courses for the School of Graduate Professional Studies at Etown since January 2011. Even in his other career as a radio personality, like his position as the public service director of 96.1 SOX and the community affairs director at 98.5 WYCR, a sizable percentage of his audience resided in Lancaster county.
In terms of political history, Rudy has run for a couple of local elections including a school board seat in the early 2000s in York county due to unhappiness with the current board, but he had to drop it due to a fear of the fair time measure, where the person running against him could ask to get equal time on the radio station. He also ran for a district magistrate position a few years ago in his area and he tried to run for the house last election but got involved too late to get the necessary signatures to get on the primary ballot.
When asked why Rudy wants to run, his answer was simple.
“I want to make a difference in this world,” he said.
In his radio career, he felt that he could use his status as a radio personality “to get the word out about nonprofit organizations.” Rudy especially advocated for these nonprofits through being on the board of many of them. Beyond just talking about the events and working with organizations, he also occasionally went and broadcasted from them.
Rudy wants to emphasize his effort to “protect those who are marginalized in society.” Some of the causes he values include homelessness, abuse, animal abuse, elderly abuse and the mental health crisis. He has worked directly on these issues by serving on the Lancaster county Office of Ageing Advisory Council, helping with WoofStock at Harrisburg, and being on the board of the York county SPCA.
If he were in office, he would try and enact laws that have more severe penalties for those who abuse animals, do what he could about gun violence on the state level, and do more work with nonprofits on the state level to reach and help more people.
As with any voting matter, anyone who is voting should think and research before they do so, and Rudy agrees. He wants college students to avoid black-and-white thinking. Rudy, who grew up in the 1960s, often found that people his age voted alongside their parents’ party lines, yet today the same trends cannot be seen. Additionally, college students have been voting more than ever before.
To further this trend of informed and involved college voting, students should go out and vote, or register to vote if they have not already done so. The Pennsylvania primaries will be held on April 23rd, 2024, and the general election will be on November 5th, 2024. Voters can also specifically check out information on Rudy at bobrudy.com.
