Parents form school bus company

SMITHFIELD, Utah — When the district where his daughter attends elementary school stopped providing bus service to her school, Ty Haguewood formed his own bus company, Smithfield Bus LLC. 

Haguewood and fellow parent Bruce Jones bought a school bus at a school district auction for about $6,000. Eighty-two students ride the bus to Sunrise Elementary School in Smithfield, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. The students’ parents pay a $206 yearly fee per child for them to ride the bus to and from school.

Smithfield Bus covers insurance, maintenance, diesel fuel and a part-time driver, who also is a parent.

Haguewood serves as the substitute driver. He worked as a bus driver for Provo (Utah) City School District when he was a student at Brigham Young University and has maintained his CDL since.

This year, a boundary reconfiguration made Sunrise Elementary School one of two “walking” elementaries with no bus service in the Cache County School District, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. All families live within 1.5 miles of the school, so no students qualify for state-funded bus service.