School bus service through the years

Editor’s note: The following column originally appeared in the Aug. 23, 2002 edition of the Daily Mail.

With school starting this week, hundreds of children will be getting on the big yellow buses to take a ride to their school. In the Nevada school system the first school buses were used in 1931. Bill Harris of Deerfield bought a Chevrolet truck, put a bed on it and transported high school students from the Deerfield area to Nevada. It was painted a gray-blue instead of the current yellow color.

Instead of seats, Harris installed benches down the sides and footstools in the center. He could bring 30 students to school in that vehicle. Because Highway 54 was being paved that year the bus had to detour around to Brickyard Hill so the assistant superintendent, W. Garland Keithly, who lived south of Nevada, was able to ride the bus along with the students.

At the same time P.C. Butler of Moundville had a 1931 Ford with a factory built body painted orange. He drove a route from Moundville into Nevada. Lucille Butner, who later became a teacher in the Nevada system, remembers riding this bus. She said there was a bench down the middle of the bus and the last ones on the bus had to straddle this bench to find a seat. Many of the students had to walk as far as three miles to catch the bus as it only went down the main roads. The bus drivers were paid partly by the state and partly by the students who rode the buses. T.H. Haggard drove the first school owned bus.

In the 1940s he drove two routes each day. He brought the first students in from the south of the city, let those students out, and then drove a route to the north and west of Nevada. It is reported that the students on the second bus were sometimes late because of road conditions. A January 1971 edition of The Crimson and Gray reports that at that time there were 23 regular school bus routes run each school day with 995 children riding the bus daily. The routes covered over 1,397 miles. In 2003 the Nevada School District has 34 routes, which transport 1,700 children each day out of a school population of 2,600.

In addition to the regular routes that buses take to bring students to school, there are many extra trips that the buses, with their drivers, take to transport students to special activities, sporting events and educational trips.

Stanley Butner, who was transportation supervisor at the end of his career with the bus system had the assignment of transporting the cheerleaders and their sponsor, Mrs. Bernice Teel, to sporting events and to cheerleader school. A picture from 1964 shows him with his charges as they are preparing to attend a cheerleader school at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, Okla.

Another historic picture shows Stanley Butner with the bus drivers of 1953-1954.

We appreciate Lucille Butner sharing information about her late husband’s career. In appreciation for all the bus drivers who have brought children and youth safely to school through the years, we print Butner’s favorite prayer.

A bus driver’s prayer

Please, Lord, watch over me this day. Please help me to remember to watch all five mirrors, two dozen windows, eight gauges, six warning lights, six dozen faces, three lanes of traffic, and to keep a third eye open for wobbling bicycles and day dreaming pedestrians, especially teenagers wearing headsets who are in another world. Please, Lord; help me hear all train whistles, truck and automobile horns, police sirens, and the two-way radio. Please, Lord, give me a hand for the gear lever, the steering wheel, the route book, the radio microphone and the turn signal lever. And, Lord, please grant me the self-control to keep my hands away from Johnny’s neck and please don’t let Mary be sick all over the bus. Finally Lord; please watch over us all so we can do it again next year.

We would welcome stories from some of our readers about how they got to school when they were in high school. We know many students moved into Nevada for the week in order to attend school. Perhaps some have stories about riding a horse, walking long distances, or even hitch hiking. Let us hear from you.