The wheels on the bus
A longtime bus driver for the Stanton School District is currently enjoying his retirement.
Earlier this year, Larry Watson, of Stanton, announced ended his run of serving as a bus driver for the district. Collectively, he was a school bus driver for roughly 30 years. Watson said he started out as a bus driver as a senior in high school.
“I started up at Stennett, which is where I graduated. I drove for my whole senior year. When I moved to Stanton in 1954, I ended up becoming a bus driver for the district and drove a bus until the late 1960s,” Watson said.
Watson said he left the district as he was too busy working with Standard Oil to have the time to drive the bus. A little over 30 years later, Watson returned to the familiar post within the Stanton District.
“In the fall of 1999, I started back with Stanton, and retired this year. It came to about 30 years driving for Stanton, and one year for Stennett,” commented Watson.
Watson said he got involved in bus driving initially after his parents moved to the city.
“My parents sold the farm and moved to Omaha, and I said, I don’t do Omaha. I got a job on a farm and you might say I was on my own. In the 1950s, there were three school bus routes out of Stennett, and they allowed for senior boys to drive the bus. It started out as a money thing. I could do my chores early, go in and drive the bus, go to school, drive the bus again, and then come home and do more chores. I got a whole $65 a month, and I’ll tell you, for a kid in the 1950s who was on their own, that was a lot of money,” said Watson.
Watson decided to continue as a bus driver after he graduated due to slow business at the service station he owned.
“I bought a closed station in 1954, and there were three service stations in Stanton. My wife and I had a little boy, and I decided that I could use the money. I could work it into my schedule, so I started driving again.”
His last tenure as a driver for the school came about at the insistence of then-superintendent Judd Ashley.
“He couldn’t get a bus driver, and kept telling me I had the experience. I was farming at the time, and I never farmed real big, about 500 acres. I thought I could work it in, and he finally talked me into it, and so I stuck with it until I turned 85, and then I decided it was time for me to quit,” Watson said.
While driving the bus, Watson had the pleasure of driving for four generations of his family.
“I married a girl who was on my bus route in the 1950s. We got married, and my two children weren’t on my route, but I took them to activities. My daughter, Melanie Peterson, lives in Stanton, and she had five boys who I also took to activities. Then her oldest son, Matthew, has two children, and they did ride on my route, which became my fourth generation.”
Watson said it was a difficult decision for him to officially retire from the bus driving position.
“I really miss the kids. I’ve always been an early riser, and I’ve always enjoyed watching the sun come up, and I could do that every morning out on the bus route. I miss that too. I also miss driving my two great-grandkids. I miss seeing them every day,” commented Watson.
While driving, Watson said he saw a number of changes happen in regards to upgrades to school buses.
“When I first started driving, you had to take the outside dual off, and turn the inside dual around so it would track. You couldn’t go out onto those mud roads with a dual vehicle. We’d put the chains on in the first of March and they were still on during the last day in school. The buses were smaller too. The bus I drive in the 1950s you could have put right inside of the bus I drove my last year. Another difference was the routes themselves. My first route was one mile out in the country where I picked up 17 kids on one mile. When I retired, I had about 17 kids in a 40 mile trip. That’s how much the country has changed,” said Watson.
Watson added driving a school bus would be a great opportunity for the right person.
“It takes a special person to be a bus driver. You have to love kids, for one thing, and you have to have a little order. They’ll also have to work hard to get their license. You have to get a permit, and a license, and it’s quite a process now, as opposed to when I started, when all I needed was a chauffer’s license. If they’re willing to do that, and work with a schedule where they have to work morning and afternoon, I certainly enjoyed it while I was doing it,” Watson said.