TEMPLE, Texas — Killeen Daily Herald reports that the 2014-15 school year marks the 42nd year that Dorothy Skala has driven buses for Rosebud-Lott Independent School District, a career that grew out of a joke, according to Skala.

Skala’s first day as a bus driver was Jan. 24, 1973, but she had no idea she was going to be a bus driver, since she had not applied for the job, according to the newspaper. Skala had been in the hospital with her young daughter when Joe Moore, the director of operations at the district at the time, walked by Skala in the hospital corridor and asked her if she would like to drive a bus. She responded that it sounded like fun. Two weeks later, the Herald reports, she received a phone call from the district, informing her she was hired as a school bus driver. Out of curiosity, she went to the school. Moore gave her keys to a bus, told her the route she would be driving, and she has been a bus driver ever since.

Having grown up on a farm, Skala started driving at a young age, the newspaper reports. When she was in high school, she and her friends took out an ad for a taxi service, and later, when Skala married, her husband owned a farm, so she drove from one farm to the other.

Last spring, Skala was presented with the Bus Driver of the Year award from the Texas Association for Pupil Transportation, and at the beginning of this school year, Rosebud-Lott Superintendent Anthony Price presented her with a letterman jacket, according to the newspaper.

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