Wanda English Burnett, Editor

Ronald Buchanan, Versailles, was appointed coroner for Ripley County last Wednesday, after Eric Karsteter resigned earlier in the month. Since Karsteter resigned during his term, a Republican caucus, made up of precinct committeemen from each township, voted to name the new coroner.
Buchanan had been serving as deputy coroner since mid-December of last year and had served as deputy coroner in Jefferson County for six months.

As of 2007, coroners and their deputies are now required to pass a 40-hour course that is nationally accepted through the Indiana Coroner’s Training Board. Buchanan completed that course over the weekend. He now has to have 16 hours every other year of continued training to retain the position and of course the vote of the people he serves. He has signed up to run on the Republican ticket for the May primary.

“There’s a lot more to it than what people think,” Buchanan told the Osgood Journal Monday morning after taking a three-hour test with 200 questions. Described as a “systematic training program for the professional death investigator” the course titled Medicolegal Death Investigator, was intense.
Buchanan describes his job as coroner like this. “I call it death care. Not only are you taking care of the deceased, but you’re taking care of the family too.”

Growing up in Ripley County and having worked in the healthcare field for 26 years, Buchanan knows the importance of relating to people. He started his career as a dispatcher for Rescue 69 at the age of 16. He took his basic EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) training, followed by the advanced training and then became a paramedic. He is employed with King’s Daughters’ Hospital Emergency Medical Services in Madison as a paramedic. While only working for the hospital as a paramedic since 2006, he has been employed there since 1991 as an EMT. Before going full time as a paramedic, Buchanan worked for ten years at Batesville Casket, while working as an EMT also. “I enjoy helping people,” he noted.

Buchanan and his wife, Roseann, have five children together. Bryan, 16, who is a cadet with the Versailles Volunteer Fire Department, Brittany, 13, Natalie, 11, Sam, 7, and Gabriel, 3, who his dad says already loves fire trucks, ambulances, sirens, police cars, etc. Roseann is employed with Columbus Regional Hospital as an emergency room nurse.

“I look forward to working with law enforcement and others in this capacity,” Buchanan noted. He concluded with saying he hopes to be involved with community organizations that provide proactive training, such as Prevent Child Abuse and perhaps some sort of grief counseling.

After being associated with the coroner’s office for 28 years, Mike Stratton noted, “I am glad to see someone of Buchanan’s caliber appointed to the position.”

Ronald Buchanan