The Wheels Have Gone Round and Round for 100 Years

There’s a reason why a 1993 Colorado school bus with 240,000 miles on it is approaching the far corner of North Dakota, or why long-retired New York school buses are still used for public transportation in Guatemala City.

Durability.

The steel-frame school bus, an invention and institution that marks its 100th anniversary later this academic year, has left a legacy well beyond local American neighborhoods.

Blue Bird Corporation began manufacturing its transport vehicles in 1927. It played a key role in developing a major piece of Americana—the classic yellow school bus—that has shaped the daily lives of children and families for a century, according to the company website.

The Georgia-based manufacturer has built more than 620,000 school buses, with about 180,000 of them still operating today.

By the late 1930s, federal agencies recommended the color yellow in the name of safety because it was easier for other motorists to notice. States and school districts were also happy to take advantage of lower prices offered when manufacturers produced vehicles in bulk, with the same color and design, according to the Smithsonian Institution.

Many bus makers followed in Blue Bird’s footsteps to meet the massive American demand for school transportation. Today, there are more than 480,000 yellow buses transporting 26 million K–12 students, according to the Smithsonian. It’s a child’s rite of passage, a symbol of hope and freedom, and an American innovation shared with the rest of the world.

Here’s a look at some of the vehicles and the people who love driving them.

The Golden State’s Top Driver

In rural, mountainous Trinity County, California, students who live along the longest bus route get picked up at 6:30 a.m. and won’t get home until after 5 p.m. A staff of just eight drivers covers an area where 600 K–12 students are spread over 3,200 square miles.

Luke Case has driven each of those routes during his 18-year career there. Now, Case is the district transportation director, though he also serves as the main substitute driver and oversees vehicle maintenance. He lends a hand with extracurriculars as well on evenings and weekends, often driving the volleyball or basketball teams to games more than two hours away, sometimes climbing Scott Mountain in freezing rain or heavy snow.

There have been times when chains were needed on all four tires to get down the mountain safely, or when plows were called on short notice to cover the route in front of Case.

“A lot of times, the guy driving the plow has a kid on the team,” Case told The Epoch Times, regarding his time as a student passenger in the same district. “That family environment is why I fell in love with the job.”

One of the Blue Bird buses in his fleet of eight is 26 years old with 400,000 miles on it. Case also runs two newer electric buses for the shortest routes.

If the number of miles, hours, and weather challenges weren’t already enough to secure Case top honors for his vocation in the Golden State, his work during the COVID-19 pandemic pushed him past the finish line.

When schools were closed between March and August, Case and his staff transported classwork and food to all 600 students at home daily. Not every home in the low-income district had reliable internet service at the time.

“They missed the interaction and were happy to see us,” said Case, who was named California bus driver of the year for 2021. “They didn’t hide from the knock on the door.”

North Carolina’s Student Bus Drivers

Marty Webb fondly recalls his first visit to the local Hoke County, North Carolina, high school in the early 1960s.

The eighth grader watched in awe as a fellow student three or four years his senior operated the bus, shifting gears, changing lanes, and stopping at a railroad crossing without the slightest bump.

“Man, I thought that was just the coolest thing,” Webb told The Epoch Times.

Webb applied for a student bus driver position after getting his driver’s license in 1964. He was selected for the training process, completed the 15 hours of classroom instruction, passed the written test, finished two days of hands-on training, and passed the bus driver’s test by the spring of his sophomore year. He was a substitute driver for two weeks before a regular appointment opened up.

Back then, the rule was one and done: a traffic infraction or ticket of any kind, whether the bus or a family vehicle, disqualified a student driver from further service.

The pay was $30 a month. The drivers were expected to park the buses in front of their homes overnight and on weekends, though personal use of vehicles was prohibited. Drivers also weren’t allowed to participate in school sports.

Power steering and braking didn’t exist on these rear-drive vehicles at the time; passenger safety depended on the older kids’ sharp reflexes and focus. There were no radios for entertainment or communication. If a bus broke down, the protocol was to remain parked on the side of the road until help arrived.

The 68 passengers included students between the ages of 6 and 18. Webb said he never had a problem with unruly kids on his bus after he issued them a warning on his first day.

“I told them: I’m the chief of police, I’m your mama, I’m your daddy,” he said. “And you’re gonna sit down and shut up.”

If not, Webb was prepared to drive the troublemaker back to their house and continuously blare the horn until a parent came out and got their kid off the bus.

Webb saved his pay to finance his own vehicle purchase. During summer breaks, he drove a bus for the Head Start program, which required a partnering bus monitor because of the age and circumstances of the children. After high school graduation, he drove the sports and after-school activities bus on a part-time basis.

In 1983, Webb’s daughter, Wendy, was selected as a student bus driver in the Cumberland County, North Carolina, school district. By then, the split of girl-to-boy drivers was about 50–50, compared to just two female drivers when Webb was in high school. Wendy’s route was longer than her dad’s—two hours each way—but she still got to park the vehicle at home. Her school provided its drivers with varsity jackets, and the buses were equipped with radios, power steering, and power brakes, but were still manual transmissions.

“When she told me she got the job,” he said, “talk about being a proud father.”

By the mid-1980s, North Carolina was one of the last states to end the student bus driver program due to liability concerns.

Webb, who enjoyed a long career as a stock car racing announcer for a local radio station, said driving a school bus as a young man helped him to think quickly on his feet.

“It gave me a lot of confidence,” he said.

A Mobile Hunting Camp With a Message

In 2017, Sam Soholt bought a 1993 Colorado school bus for $3,500. It had 179,000 miles on it.

Fast forward almost a decade. The vehicle now has more than a quarter of a million miles behind it as it heads to North Dakota for the upland fowl hunting season.

The outdoorsman from South Dakota has lived in it for part of the past nine years. The rows of seats have been replaced with beds and a kitchen area. There are solar panels, a generator, a propane water heater, a wood stove, a freezer, and a large awning that’s quickly assembled when Soholt sets up camp on federal public lands.

This has been more than just a hobby for Soholt. He is also raising awareness about public land conservation, hoping to deter federal lawmakers from turning over federal forestlands and parklands to the states, which don’t have the resources for proper management and could be prone to sell off parcels to private landowners, he said. He’s chronicled his trips on social media and sold merchandise to support his cause.

The 33-year-old Blue Bird has held up well so far. It has had some minor repairs and gets maintenance at a Colorado bus depot that applies the same level of care that it would to a commissioned school transport vehicle, Soholt said.

In between camps, Soholt parked outside of Walmart stores to avoid operating the rear-wheel drive vehicle in bad weather. He called a trek in freezing rain “absolutely terrifying.”

“I prefer to be risk-averse,” he told The Epoch Times. “It can be tricky in snow and ice. At that point you’re not driving —you’re sailing.”

After Soholt’s project surpasses the decade mark in 2027, he’ll give the vehicle away, hopefully to someone who will use it for similar purposes, even if it remains a stationary hunting camp somewhere. He imagines he’ll continue his trade as a photographer and videographer in some form.

“I just pivoted in the message I was trying to preach,” he said. “I don’t know what’ll be next. We’ll see where the wind blows.”

Retiring Down South

Church groups, recreation programs, and plenty of domestic organizations and companies are always on the lookout for decommissioned school buses, but there’s also a major export market. New standard diesel vehicles that transport between 40 and 80 students cost up to about $150,000, but, like cars, they depreciate quickly.

In Latin America, “Old Yellows” find second careers as public transport vehicles in both crowded cities and rural areas where chickens and small livestock accompany passengers to the public market. They are also made into banana vans, where farmers rip out most of the seats and even part of the roof to pile up their produce for sales and shipments.

New Jersey-based BusesForSale.com sells fleets on several continents, including Africa, where they bring miners to job sites, said George Lekas, chief operating officer.

“It’s not unusual for these things to be 20 years old and last another 20 years,” he told The Epoch Times. “The uses are endless.”

At an American culture museum in Poland, for example, a school bus inside a warehouse has been converted into a snack bar.

On most used bus lots, an older bus in good shape costs less than $20,000, Lekas said. Overseas buyers often order dozens of retired school buses, which are shipped from nearby Wilmington, Delaware.

Used Chinese buses have fallen out of favor because they are much less reliable, and it’s difficult to find parts for them, according to Lekas.

By contrast, parts are still abundant for old American buses, and the simple design—heavy-duty steel chassis, diesel engine, automatic transmission, and high ground clearance—can adapt to all types of roads in varying climates, Lekas said.

“It’s not about being super fancy,” he said. “It’s about being reliable.”

Business owners and fleet managers in some nations like to repaint the buses in bright colors to make them more eye-catching, depending on their purpose. Still, across Europe, the Caribbean, and some Latin American nations, the American yellow bus remains a status symbol of sorts, Lekas said.

“There’s a sense of pride for these overseas,” he said. “They’re considered to be the best-built buses. It’s uniquely American.”

 The Future

Even with changing technology, Americans aren’t ready to imagine a world without yellow school buses.

Several districts across the country began replacing their diesel fleets with electric vehicles. Yellow is still the color, and the traditional shape of these buses is the same despite the newer technology.

Today, Blue Bird promotes electric, natural gas, and propane-powered low-emission buses.

“Blue Bird is transforming the student transportation industry through cleaner energy solutions,” its website says, noting that the company has so far produced 25,000 school buses that don’t run on diesel or gasoline fuels.

Still, the technology for renewable energy-powered buses has a long way to go before they take over the market, Lekas says. The vehicles are quite a bit more expensive than diesel-powered buses, and electric buses require fleets that can handle more weight and, in some climates, heated indoor storage facilities. Bus routes in some rural areas are far longer than what a fully charged electric bus can cover.

Lekas said more than 80 percent of U.S. school buses in operation today are still powered by diesel.

Further out on the horizon, school leaders might grapple with the question: Should self-driving buses be allowed to transport children?

The Teague Design company, on its website, shows renderings of six-passenger “Hannah” autonomous yellow school buses that would pick up and drop off children in front of their homes.

In between morning pick-ups and afternoon drop-offs, these vehicles could double as autonomous food or merchandise delivery systems, or mobile charitable donation bins.

Displaced drivers would instead be employed as fleet managers who remotely monitor student transports and activate the vehicle’s daily transitions to serve companies like Starbucks or Amazon.

“Hannah actually delivers better supervision than today’s drivers,” the website says, adding that transporting 50-plus children can “overtax” a human’s eyes and ears. “And yet we are conditioned by this illusion of supervision, so much so that a driverless school vehicle might feel like a non-starter to some.”