PEA RIDGE — Many of us who attended Pea Ridge School have memories of riding school buses. Some of us have fond memories of bus drivers who took us to school every day. As I approached school age in the mid 1940s, I remember watching the school bus passing our house, carrying my cousins Marvin and Bud Nichols, who lived just up the road from us. I envied them, because they got to ride the school bus, and I couldn't go, too little!
In 1945 and 1946, Mr. O.R. Morrison was our school bus driver. Mr. Morrison lived on the farm which is now the Pea Ridge City Park. In those days, the school didn't own the buses. When the school board hired the driver, they were hiring him to use his own vehicle to transport kids to school. During the early 1940s, many of the "buses" weren't really buses, they were trucks; often open-top, flat-bed trucks with sides on the bed to keep kids from falling out. John Miser remembers an old Model A Ford flatbed truck driven by Hugh "Goose" Price. Seating, if there was seating, might be a wooden bench. Many kids would stand up, holding to the sides of the truck bed as they made their way to school. Was it a cold ride to school? Yes it was; often teeth-chattering cold!
Mr. Morrison's bus was enclosed, having a real school bus body. But the seats weren't arranged as are the seats in our buses today. Mr. Morrison's bus had straight benches along the sides, reaching from front to back under the windows, and in the middle between two isles were rows of seats that could seat about three kids each. The kids in the side benches sat with their backs to the windows; except, of course, when we were squirming around and turning about.
Charles Day reminded me the other day that Mr. Morrison, who in those days owned his bus, used to remove the school bus body from the truck chassis when school was out, so he could use the truck around the farm for hay hauling other chores. Then, in the fall, he would bolt the bus body back on the chassis and start taking kids to school. I rode that old bus during my first year in school. In later years, the bus body stood as an empty hulk outside Mr. Morrison's barn long after it was retired from service.
Some days ago John Miser was telling me that 1947 was the year when the school began owning the school buses. I remember that for our route we got a new Ford bus, as did also the route which served Twelve Corners community. I think Pea Ridge School had four buses at that time, with probably fewer than 200 kids in the whole school. Back then, the town kids didn't ride the buses. Only those of us who lived two miles or more from school could ride a bus. I remember that Wayne Hileman, who lived on Hickman Road, had to have family transportation or walk to school. If Mr. Morrison had had schoolaged kids, they would not have been eligible to ride his bus.
My brothers and sister and I were always the first kids on our bus in the morning and the last off in the evening. Could we claim a record for school bus miles? Our bus always traveled the route counter-clockwise in the morning, and clockwise in the evening; mainly because the hills north of us were steep, and the drivers didn't want to negotiate those hills with a fully loaded bus. Russell Walker has told me that school busing led to changes in some of the roads. For example, the steep hill on the northern part of Lucas Lane, north of Pea Ridge, was purposely relocated and improved so the school bus could travel that road. Previously it had been like a logging trail, hardly a road at all. I can remember that hill as newly graded and very steep in 1948. Our Ford bus always needed "Grandma gear" to pull that hill, even though there might be only six or eight kids on the bus. Grandma gear might not have been enough with 30 passengers aboard.
Those first schoolowned buses apparently came with no heaters. I remember that for weeks in winter we "froze" on the way to school. The first heater added was a little unit suspended from the dash, near the entry door. We could hardly tell when it was on. We still froze. Then one day our bus showed up with a new, gasoline-burning heater. We were warm. But, soon, the gasoline-burning heater was gone, too dangerous to use on a school bus, and we were freezing again. Eventually our bus was outfitted with a hefty heaters to the left of the driver, a large water-heated unit with a strong circulating fan. Finally, we were warm on the way to school.
Contact Jerry Nichols by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 09/09/2009