Tim Bentz, transportation director at Cascade School District in Leavenworth, Wash., has taken school bus enthusiasm to new heights in the decoration of his office. He has turned his 28- year career in pupil transportation into a treasure hunt, collecting over 150 pieces of school bus memorabilia and other antiques, which he displays in his office and drivers lounge.
“My interest was sparked many years ago when my former boss gave me an old Gillig bus emblem, and it all unraveled from there,” Bentz says. He began searching for emblems and other finds in wrecking yards and would keep his eyes open for old buses in the area.
“I’d see a bus out in somebody’s pasture field and ask if they could part with their emblem,” he explains. Soon, fellow transportation directors around the state began to contribute to his collection. “When they’d surplus one of their old buses, they’d pull the emblem off and give it to me.”
He has also found items of interest online but, as he explains, “most of it’s come from me beating the brush.”
“I’ve laid on my back and stood on my head in wrecking yards and pastures to get them loose, and it’s been a fun hobby,” Bentz says.
One of Bentz’s most prized possessions is a Gillig Coach emblem from the 1940s. He first saw the emblem on an old bus that had been converted into a motor home. “I stopped and talked to the gentleman that lived in it,” he says. “He wasn’t interested in parting with the emblem.”
But now that he knew such an emblem existed, Bentz was on a mission to find another one for his collection. “I’d gotten all the other Gillig emblems from the ‘50s and ‘60s, but not that one.”
Eventually, Bentz found the emblem on eBay. The seller had misspelled Gillig as “Gilling” in the listing.
“I think that’s probably the reason I didn’t have to give my right arm for the thing,” Bentz says. “There are other crazy people like me that collect this stuff, and if he’d spelled it right, I think I probably would have paid a couple hundred dollars for it.”
Bentz ended up buying the emblem for $21.
Bentz began his career in pupil transportation as a school bus driver for Naches (Wash.) Valley School District, a position he held for over two decades before moving to the school’s maintenance department. He’s held the position of transportation director at Cascade School District for two years.
If you have an interesting piece of school bus memorabilia or an unusually decorated office, we’d like to see it. Please send an e-mail with a photo and your contact information to info@schoolbusfleet.com.
