Still driving after all these years Darrel Lind looks back on 50 years of driving school bus in Rib Lake

“It’s been good,” said Darrel Lind, 77, of his 50 years of driving school bus for in the Rib Lake School District.

Darrel, who has driven three generations of some area families to and from school each day, formally began his bus driving career in late summer 1970. Prior to that he drove a van for three three years while working as the janitor at the old Liberty School building.

He remembers that bus driver Ray Ziembo had retired and Rib Lake district administrator Bob Becker and school board president Wilbert Blomberg came out to his house and asked him if he would be interested in taking over the route.

Darrel, who was in his 20s at the time said he would, but explained to them that the girl he was dating at the time was going to be entering her senior year at Rib Lake and would be on that route.

“They were OK with that and during her senior year, my wife-to-be was riding on my route,” Darrel said. Darrel and Luann were married the following summer and have five children and 29 grandchildren.

“Nowadays they wouldn’t allow that to happen,” Darrel said, of how much things have changed over the years.

“I like the kids,” Darrel said of what keeps him going year after year. Overall, most of the kids have been good, but he noted that a special few every year would end up sitting up in the front seats where they would have less chance of getting into mischief.

He noted that especially when he is wearing his sunglasses, the kids don’t realize just how much of an eye he is keeping on them as he drives the route. He said at times he has had to pull over and deal with issues, but also praised the parents and school district that those incidents have been relatively few over the years and that he has had nothing but positive support from the district and from parents when there have been issues.

“I think it is hard to discipline kids,” he said. He said he has been grateful for the school’s support in those situations.

The first 33 years of driving, Darrel worked for the school district and when the district made the decision to sell all the buses to Bartelt he went to work for them and is currently in his 18th year with the company.

Throughout it all, Darrel and his wife raised their family and farmed in the town of Spirit. He had a 30head dairy farm and would wake up every morning at about 4:30 a.m. to do his chores and the morning milking before heading off to drive his bus route leaving his home at 6:45 a.m. every day. He said he has been fortunate over the years to be able to keep his bus at his home allowing him to start his route right away without having to drive to pick it up. Darrel said he has always made it a point of not going from the barn to the bus and always made sure he changed out of his barn clothes before starting the route.

While his children were going through school he would often take extra runs going on trips to sporting events, music festivals and even down to Madison the year the boys made it to state. He was one of three drivers taking loads of students and fans down for that one, and noted there were likely not many people left in the village while they were gone.

He said the trips made it possible for him to see his daughters’ volleyball games and his children’s other activities. He said he always felt a little bad because of the two to three nights a week he would be making the trips, his wife would cover for him and do the barn chores and milking herself. He said that after the change in ownership with the buses he stopped doing the extra trips, by that time his children were grown and he gave the opportunity to other drivers choosing instead to be home helping with the farm chores. He said the major difference when they sold their cows a few years ago was being able to sleep later.

Driving a school bus in a rural area brings with it certain challenges. Darrel said he has seen his share of white-out conditions where you are white-knuckled driving and trying to get the kids home safely. He praised the district for being willing to call off school earlier, noting the times in the past that he would start his route and drive through ice and snow to get to the building only to be told to turn around and take the kids back home because school had been cancelled.

Darrel said he has been fairly lucky when it comes to avoiding breakdowns, but given enough time they are bound to happen. He said most times the issues that come up are nothing you would have been able to catch in a pre-route check such as the parking break deciding to lock up, or the electronic door controller going out.

He tells the story when he was driving a van full of kindergarten students. Anyone who has driven on back roads in central Wisconsin knows that they are a challenge certain times of year. Darrel explained that no matter how bad they might be now, in the late 1960s they were worse.

The van he was driving got stuck. He did his best to get it unstuck on his own, but without help could not do much. At the time before cellphones, the standard procedure was for the driver to select two reliable children and have them walk to the nearest residence to get help. With a load of kindergarteners, one of whom was on crutches with a broken leg, that was not a realistic solution. Darrel ended up carrying the student with the broken leg and leading all the others to the closest farm. “I carried the little guy, and the others walked with me,” he said, “It wasn’t overly far, but it was a ways, away.”

The farmer was able to use his tractor to get the van going again.

One of the challenges that any bus driver has is dealing with the routes. Darrel said he regularly gets notes telling him a child should be dropped off at their grandma’s or grandpa’s house with vague directions such as saying they are “out by Spirit.” This is where experience comes in handy as Darrel asked questions and calls on his memories of picking children up at homes 20 years earlier to know where the grandma’s house is.

He said most parents are good about letting him know if a student won’t be on the bus that day so that he can adjust his route. This can make a big difference given the rural area and the distance between homes.

As for the future, Darrel said he has no plans to stop driving, at least for now.

“As long as I feel in good health and feel that I am not going to have any issues I will keep going,” he said. As part of his CDL certification he has to take tests and physicals on a regular basis.

“I am good for another year,” he said, noting that he recently went though the annual testing.

For now, Darrel said he has liked seeing the changes, from getting paid $5 a run when he first started to about $28 per run now. The switchover to automatics from the old manuals that would have five speeds with two speeds in the rear. He remembers his first bus was a 1969 Ford and they would have to take it down to Medford Motors for service. He remembers the days of having the 54 passenger limit on the bus and of ending up with two to three extras by the time the route was done. He said nowadays the buses are not as full, largely because as soon as they turn 16 most of the kids are driving to school, something that would have been unheard of in his younger days.

“It has been an interesting and good life,” Darrel said, of going from being the young kid on the route to having been driving for 50 years. He said he sat down with his wife over Easter and counted out that he drove with 70 different fellows and ladies over those years. “Out of that group a fair number are no longer with us,” he said.

While times, fashions and technology have changed with the years, for the past 50 years Darrel Lind has been constant, making sure his kids get to and from school safely every day.