Driver thwarts hijacking attempt

EAST CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A veteran school bus driver was honored for preventing a possibly armed man from hijacking his bus.

On Jan. 6, Cabell County Schools driver David Shawn Gibson was transporting a high school speech and debate team back from a competition. While the group was stopped at a restaurant for dinner and Gibson was finishing some paperwork on the bus, a man who was believed to be armed boarded the bus and told Gibson to take him to a city more than 100 miles away.

Gibson was able to talk the man off of the bus. The man then followed Gibson into the restaurant, where the driver asked a waitress to call the police and told the debate teacher not to let the students leave the area.

No one was hurt in the incident, and the man was later arrested.

In mid-March, the West Virginia Board of Education presented Gibson with an award at its monthly meeting. Ben Shew, the state’s executive director of pupil transportation, cited Gibson’s “cool, calm and collected actions” during the hijacking attempt.

Gibson has served as a school bus driver for 11 years.