Here, we share photos submitted to us by pupil transporters throughout the country that were featured in the Snapshots department of our 2011 Fact Book as well as our January and February 2011 issues.
Snapshots — Winter 2011
The Geyserville (Calif.) Unified School District transportation team goes the extra mile for its students, as exemplified by this photo. Lead bus driver Lisa Harjak volunteered to chauffeur
students from the district’s
high school and continuation school to their prom.
It’s safety first for this bride and groom! Scott Thorner, transportation manager for Star and Strand Transportation Inc. in Troy, N.Y., says his wife, Roxann, pre-tripped the bus before their wedding ceremony since one of their drivers was going to bring the bus to the reception. (Roxann is the company’s 19A certified examiner.) “We took a limo to the wedding, but we drove the bus back to our home from the hotel/banquet hall the day after the wedding,” Thorner adds.
A view from inside one of
the blinds. “When we
stopped to investigate, the
gentleman who built the
stands asked us to come
take a closer look. We were both quite impressed with this unique use of a retired school bus!” Graham says. He notes that the swing-out window provides a better shot for younger hunters.
Riding a school bus is a family affair for these kids. The 10 oldest are transported to and from school by their grandfather, Clarence Coble (center), who works for Wisconsin-based Bayer Bus Service. A family member tells SBF that almost all of Coble's grandchildren ride the
same bus on a daily basis, and his three youngest grandchildren will ride the bus as they come of age.
This is a shot of a 1938 Wayne Works All Metal Body model 1010 mounted on a Ford V-8 122 chassis. Optional equipment for the bus included a No. 20 roof ventilating system and No. 54 body width lights.
Photo submitted by Louk Markham, transportation manager, Portage (Mich.) Public Schools.
The staff at Student Transportation of America's (STA) Santa Maria, Calif., location transforms a yellow school bus into a float for the city's annual Christmas Parade of Lights. Last year, they turned a bus into Noah's ark. In addition to creating a float for the parade, the STA Santa Maria staff donates time to many volunteer programs in the area each year. They also hold an annual holiday toy drive, a food drive and a "Stuff the Bus" school supplies drive.
The staff at the DoDEA-Pacific Misawa (Japan) Student Transportation Office spends time in the summer doing roadeos and timed bus evacuation drills, like the one pictured here. "In the week before school resumes, we take a bus to the fire department, which fills the bus with mineral oil vapor ‘smoke,"' explains Christopher Zeitvogel, student transportation manager. "Hidden on the bus on and under the seats are 10 large plastic bottles filled with water, which represent hiding children. Driver teams compete to see which team can find and evacuate all 10 ‘children' in the least amount of time."
Last spring, North Carolina pupil transportation director
Derek Graham and his colleague James Hawkins (who passed away in June — see the obituary on pg. 93 of the November 2010 issue) were driving to a school district in eastern North Carolina when Hawkins spotted these blinds sitting on farmland at the end of a driveway. (Blinds are used to camouflage hunters from ducks or deer.)
A large hole was cut into the side of this out-of-service Grants Pass (Ore.) School District 7 bus for an evacuation training
drill. Carey Smith, transportation supervisor for the district, tells SBF that emergency response personnel practiced evacuating students after a mock train-bus accident to gain knowledge on how to help students in the event of a real disaster. “School bus drivers from around the state attended this training for required classroom hours in emergency preparedness,” Smith says.
A view of some of the district’s buses and its parking facility from inside the demolished bus.
Diane Alley, a school bus
driver for Petermann LLC’s branch in Middletown, Ohio,
painted this whimsical mural in the driver lounge. Each of
the animals is displayed as a magnet on one of the operation’s school buses to help kids identify them. The ringleader is Director of Transportation Bryan Howard. For more information about the mural, click here.