“Love the School Bus” month has arrived once again. It is celebrated each year during February, giving people across the country time to reflect on the importance of those yellow school buses in their communities.
School buses continue to serve children every school day through all sorts of weather. It becomes that bright yellow beacon for students as they stand at their bus stops each morning. People have a lot of love for the school bus.
I began my background riding a school bus as a 1st grade student at Edgewood Grade School. I continued riding school buses until I qualified to obtain a driver’s license at the age of 16.
During my high school years, my father bid on a Perry Township school bus route and became a driver. I found it a bit disconcerting that should a Southport High School teacher or staff member have a need to discuss something about me, they could just step outside any afternoon and speak with my father.
At our service station on Madison Avenue, we took care of several school buses that were part of the Perry Township contractors. I learned school bus driving skills just moving buses around the property and carefully moving them in and out of our service station.
A couple of years later, my father bid on four new bus routes and received the contracts. We began operating a school bus fleet. A couple of years later, at the age of 21, I was qualified to legally drive a school bus.
My very first school bus passenger rode with me before I had obtained my legal public passenger school bus driver’s license. We had contracted with the Southport High School Band to take them to an outdoor performance during the middle of summer. Four buses were needed to transport the band members and staff and one additional bus to transport all the large, heavy music equipment.
I was not yet licensed to drive the band members, but I could drive the equipment vehicle. We successfully completed the drive to the performance area. The band members took over and did a wonderful job with their musical band assignment.
When the festivities came to a close, we loaded the equipment onto my bus, the band members all climbed aboard their buses. The buses did not have two-way radios during those years. I saw the drivers waving to each other and one-by-one they began pulling out onto the street to return to Southport High School.
The band members had a process that allowed them to confirm that every band member was on their bus. The drivers waving to each other confirmed that all the students were accounted for and it was time to go.
My equipment bus was the last one in the line. I had been assured that all the band equipment was loaded and secured on my bus. As I started to move forward to follow the other buses, I saw someone running toward me yelling and waving his hands in the air. It was the band director, Mr. William Schmalfeldt.
He must have been visiting with people or solving a problem. I’m sure his name wasn’t on the, “Be sure they are on the bus” checklist. I stopped and opened the door to hear ranting about all the buses pulling off without him.
Because there were no two-way bus radios or cell phones, I had no way to contact any of the other buses and request one of them to return to pick up Mr. Schmalfeldt. He climbed on and found a space big enough for him to sit and I drove us back to Southport High School.
Providing transportation for my very first rider was a very unforgettable experience.
By the numbers:
489,748 school buses in use coast to coast
185,715 new drivers hired recently
20,542,922 students transported in school buses
2,710,918,484 miles traveled by school buses annually
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.