Radford voters returned incumbents to office whenever possible and added Bill Flora to the school board.

Incumbent city Councilmen Bob Nicholson and Dick Harshberger won re-election. Leslie Dean came in third in a race for two council seats.

This was Dean's third unsuccessful run for council, not counting his unsuccessful run for mayor two years ago.

Harshberger sounded even more upbeat than usual Tuesday evening.

"We are very pleased," he said. "I think we've got a wonderful four years ahead of us."

There's already a lot of momentum and urgency in the city's government, he said. "I think we can get an awful lot done with this city council."

Harshberger said he was happy Nicholson was re-elected. Nicholson didn't immediately return a call.

Incumbent Alvin Alexander led the school board vote, but he didn't know that almost an hour and a half after the polls closed.

"I don't chase the numbers," he said.

"Thank you to the voters. That's all I can say. Thank you to the voters."

Alexander said he hopes to foster more involvement by parents and students. Alexander said he'd like to see students come to board meetings "to help us improve the schools."

Flora was more than happy about joining the board.

"I'm ecstatic," he said as what sounded like his whole neighborhood congratulated him. "This is wonderful."

Flora, a professor of educational leadership at Radford University, said he plans to work with the rest of the board and the superintendent to make sure that Radford's schools are the best in the county. They already have a good start on that goal, he said.

"I don't think I'm going to radically change things, but I do have some change theory in my future," Flora said.

Calvin Andrews finished third in a race for two seats.

Only 13 percent of Radford's registered voters went to the polls Tuesday. In 2000, a school board and council race drew 24.9 percent. In 2004, 19.6 percent of turned out.