School bus driver shares 30 years of memories

By Joan Janzen
joanjanzen@yahoo.com

Gerri Holmes from Eston is ending her lengthy career as a school bus driver. However, ever since she relinquished her route two years ago, she has taken advantage of many opportunities to get behind the wheel whenever she was needed.

“It’s been an awesome thirty-plus-year journey that just flew by!” Gerri said. During those years, Gerri had two generations of families as her passengers, drove along with many other bus drivers, and saw many changes.

“We were required to retest every three years when I first started, and then it changed to every five years,” Gerri said. “When I started, there were ten buses going to two schools, which changed to five buses going to one school.”

Weather is also a constantly changing factor in Saskatchewan. “You could leave town with spitting rain, and 25 miles out, there had been three inches of rain, and you were plowing mud. I ended up in a few ditches. There were many sleepless nights when you never knew what the morning would bring,” Gerri said.

Unpredictable winter weather was typical. “You would get ten miles out and find it was storming with a total white-out where you couldn’t see the difference between the road and the ditch,” she explained. In earlier years, it was the driver’s call as to whether to drive the bus route or not. Later the Division developed a cold-weather policy, which took a lot of pressure off bus drivers and ensured the safety of students.

Gerri has fond memories of a spontaneous snowball fight that broke out in her school bus. “I don’t know if it’s allowed or not, but it happened,” she laughed. “The kids still talk about that.”

A few years back, buses were also used to transport students to school sporting tournaments. This meant Gerri spent many evenings driving to Elrose, Dinsmore, Kyle, Kindersley, Marengo, Eatonia, Swift Current, Biggar and Medicine Hat.

“One particular time, they couldn’t get a spare driver, so the student players were loaded on my bus. I did the route and continued to their tournament,” Gerri said. She also drove for many school field trips to the Sandhills, Saskatoon and skiing trips to Table Mountain.

Gerri also recalls hitting a deer with her school bus. “Luckily, there wasn’t much damage to the bus, but the deer wasn’t so lucky,” she explained.

There were occasional good surprises in store for the students on Gerri’s bus. Sometimes she would stop and take the kids for ice cream on the way out of town.

But the biggest surprise Gerri ever got was when her bus was struck by lightning! “Thankfully, there were no kids on board,” she said. “It happened so quick. The bus jolted to the side, and then it died. I started the bus, but lights were flashing, and signals were beeping, so I shut it off. Fortunately, someone was behind me and gave me a ride back to town.”

Gerri had only been driving the new bus for six months, but it needed to undergo extensive repairs. “It always had little issues after that. Maybe that’s why it was the last bus I ever got,” Gerri laughed.

Sometimes bus drivers need to be patient. Gerri recalls one stop where the pickup took a long time. She heard the kids whispering at the back of the bus, and when the last student finally got on the bus, the kids gave her a standing ovation.

When Gerri officially retired from driving the school bus, she didn’t receive a standing ovation, but she received many gifts from both present and former students.

“I will certainly miss the drives in the country, and especially the students. You form a real bond with them,” Gerri concluded.