Iowa Special-Needs School Bus Driver Retires Again

WYOMING, Iowa — A special-needs school bus driver here is retiring for the second time, after transporting special-needs students for over a decade, and driving a school bus for a total of 45 years, the Journal-Eureka reports.

After retiring from a career of 32 years of driving in 2004, Betty Anderson, or “Grandma Betty,” as she is known to students, went to Arizona briefly, she told the newspaper. Soon after, she was asked to drive the special-needs bus route for the Iowa district she had worked for, Midland Community School District.

Anderson showed a reporter for the Journal-Eureka the walls in her study, which are covered with pictures of students she has driven over the years, and she shared some stories from her driving career. She mentioned the time one of the students on the volleyball team she transported to a game forgot her shoes and asked to borrow Anderson’s shoes, and the time she had to use the bus to block the entrance to a cow pen to keep the cows from escaping, because one of the 4-H students had left the gate open. Also on her study walls were several awards honoring her for all her hard work over the years, according to the Journal-Eureka.

Although Anderson will no longer drive a bus, she still plans to stay involved in the community; she also helps with the wrestling team and school dances, among other activities.

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