In the spirit of the season, we share photos submitted to us from officials at operations around the country showing what they've done to celebrate Christmas, Halloween and Easter over the years, including participating in parades, decorating buses and organizing "Stuff the Bus" events.
Pupil Transporters Get Festive
Quincy (Ill.) Public School District #172 bus drivers and their families deliver Christmas presents to disadvantaged families in the district in a program called "Make A Merry Christmas." "Each year, our transportation department holds garage sales and collects donated high-quality items from our employees for this project," Training Manager Dan Bartelt says.
Glenn Reathaford, a school bus driver for Washington Elementary School District #6 in Phoenix, dresses up as Santa Claus after work hours during the holidays. In this photo, he was headed to the transportation department's holiday party to surprise the staff. Shot submitted by Antonio Mlynek, transportation supervisor of special education.
The transportation staff at Clovis (Calif.) Unified School District worked in their off-duty time to create this festive bus for a local Christmas parade. "Every night for about three weeks they were out there cutting the material and sewing," Director of Transportation Charlie Ott says. "I would say there were about 30 drivers involved, maybe 40. It has been a great school year, and this was one of the projects that old and new drivers alike worked on together as a team."
The transportation staff at Onslow County School System in Jacksonville, N.C., got into the holiday spirit for their annual Christmas card photo. Transportation Coordinator Angelo Caputo (far left, in the white shirt) says that the team has gathered for a Christmas card photo since he joined the district two years ago. Caputo, whose last day with the district is Dec. 20, as he’s returning to school full time, also says that the transportation staff organizes a Secret Santa gift exchange. “Our schools have ‘giving trees’ during the holidays, and this year, about half of our drivers got gifts for the schools,” he adds.
Fred Prince, a bus driver for Maine School Administrative District #37 in Harrington, decorated his bus with ears and a nose to celebrate Easter in 2010. The photo was submitted by Director of Transportation Dawn Coffin.
Filled with holiday spirit, Kerrville (Texas) Independent School District's transportation department entered the Kerrville Holiday Light Parade. Volunteering hours after work and contributing all of the materials, the staff spent three weeks building their Candyland Christmas float. Featuring over 9,000 lights and many super-size sweets, the float won first place in the parade's nonprofit catagory. The shot was submitted by Transportation Director Brad Harvey.
Durham School Services employees at the contractor's McMinnville, Tenn., terminal got into the holiday spirit during a Christmas parade last year. For the Dr. Seuss-themed event, employees dressed up as well-known characters from the author's books, and they decorated this bus as Horton the elephant. Donhua Cantrell, router/dispatcher, says 40 to 50 drivers and their family members worked on decorating the bus. "Not only did we do the bus," Cantrell adds, "we did a sled for Whoville, and we had a toy drive and handed the gifts out to children in need that rode our school buses."
Gavin Berwald, director of transportation at Westlake (Ohio) City School District, submitted this photo of a ghoulish bus carved on a pumpkin.
Sandy Minarik, a school bus driver for Eastwood Local Schools in Pemberville, Ohio, dressed up as the Easter Bunny for an annual Easter egg hunt in a park. "Most of the children from the community are on my route, or I just know them from school," she says. "I thought it would be very cool to have a picture of the same Easter Bunny they've seen at the park in their school bus, so we took this picture! When we returned back to school after Easter break, I had the picture on my dash so the children could see it as they climbed on board. A first-grader said to me, 'I knew the Easter Bunny used our bus to deliver all the eggs on Easter!' I replied, 'How did you know?' She said, 'Because I heard the horn!"'
Employees at Judson Independent School District's transportation department in Live Oak, Texas, are committed to helping people in need. A group of employees comes together to form "The Yellow Santa" during the holidays and "The Yellow Brigade" during the school year. "We give our time to volunteer in the community," says Michelle Kern, president of The Yellow Brigade. "We do a yearly food drive for the San Antonio Food Bank, and we have raised well over 2,000 pounds of food and $1,000. We also visit nursing homes, plan festivals for the students in our community, and we help Habitat for Humanity."