Here's a variety of shots from inside the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services conference and from around the host city, Memphis, Tenn. Photos by SBF Executive Editor Thomas McMahon.
Pics from Memphis: 2012 NASDPTS conference
Filmmaker Mark Kendall discussed and showed clips from his intriguing documentary La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus, which follows a yellow bus to Guatemala, where it is repainted and repurposed to provide public transportation.
Greta Bleau recently took on the designation of state director for Colorado. Longtime state director Bruce Little (not pictured) will continue to work for the Colorado Department of Education until he retires next year.
Ric Willard (right), safety defects engineer for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, discusses the topic of school bus recalls. At left is Iowa state director Max Christensen, who began his tenure as president of NASDPTS.
Memphis’ trolley system helped conference attendees get around.
Outgoing NASDPTS president and Arkansas state director Mike Simmons welcomes attendees to the association’s 2012 conference.
At the state director gathering, a mix of federal agency officials, district-level transportation directors, vendors, consultants and researchers gave presentations, many of which challenged the status quo.
Norman Kerechuk, president of GK Design International, shows diagrams of and explains his firm’s eyebrow-raising concept school bus. The vehicle would be smaller overall than a typical large school bus and would have such features as larger windows, a low floor, camera stalks in place of mirrors, seats with lap-shoulder belts and rear padding, and an energy-absorbing strike zone.
Bill Arrington, general manager of the Transportation Security Administration’s Highway and Motor Carrier Division, reminds attendees of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and reviews efforts to increase pupil transportation security.
From Memphis, Tenn., you can cross the Mississippi River into West Memphis, Ark. You can also head south to Jackson, Miss., or northeast to Jackson, Tenn. Confused yet?
Dale Wendell (left) of Blue Bird, Kelley Platt of Thomas Built Buses and Dan Cutter of IC Bus discuss developments in school transportation elsewhere in the world, particularly China and the Middle East.
Peter Crossan, fleet and compliance manager at Boston Public Schools, details an incident in which a neighboring cement silo exploded and dropped about four tons of silica dust on the district’s buses. Crossan explained how the transportation department responded to the crisis, which put 180 buses out of service and hospitalized some staff members.
Greg Akin (left) of Volusia County (Fla.) Schools, Pete Meslin of Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Judy Shanley of Easter Seals Project ACTION highlighted the benefits of transition planning — helping special-needs students to prepare for using public transit and to become more independent.
This shot from inside the legendary Sun Studio shows an original microphone and a picture of the “Million Dollar Quartet” that recorded there — Jerry Lee Lewis (left), Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.