WELLER TOWNSHIP — Bus drivers from Ashland, Richland and other nearby counties got their cowboy on Saturday.
There were no horses, but the motif had a similar feel as drivers competed in the annual North Region School Bus Driver Road-e-o.
This year, the competition was hosted at Crestview High School, where Crestview Local School bus drivers competed for the first time. They joined the 47 registered bus drivers from Loudonville-Perrysville, Clear Fork and other school districts.
The top six winners in the north region advanced to the state-level competition where they will compete against 42 drivers from the seven other regions in Ohio.
George Lee, assistant supervisor and mechanic of transportation at Loudonville-Perrysville Schools, came in sixth and will advance to the state competition on Oct. 18.
The four state champions — two who operate conventional buses with a front “nose” and two who operate transit style buses with a flat front — will advance to the international competition in Austin, Texas, in June of 2026.
Lee formed a team of drivers to compete this year for the first time.
“I just come to get better. I personally don’t drive every single day, so I don’t get to do the exercises all these guys do every single day,” Lee said.
He substitutes for other drivers and drives students to the occasional sporting event.
Lee set up a course at a Shrock Industries warehouse parking lot where he and his team of drivers and those from Clear Fork and Crestview schools practiced maneuvers after work for the last week.
“We all got together from different schools, but we were all one team as bus drivers helping each other and practiced together, so that was a lot of fun,” he said.
“We’re not hauling produce; we’re hauling kids, we’re hauling delicate, precious lives and so you want to make sure you’re doing right,” Lee said.
Testing drivers’ skills
Each driver had to go through a driving “obstacle course,” which included driving maneuvers they might have to perform while driving a bus with kids.
Before drivers went through the driving portion of the test, they took a paper test on various driving and road laws, many of which were specific to bus driving.
The driving course started easy with student pick-up and drop-off practice, where they were judged for properly stopping with enough distance.
Then drivers passed through a series of cones with diminishing clearance, which symbolized narrowing roads.
Other “obstacles” the drivers faced in the test included stopping at railroad crossings with proper distance, making left-hand turns, weaving backwards through cones and more.
Each driver started with a score of 800, and any mistakes they made on the course subtracted from their scores. Any driver who passed with a 600 or higher can become re-certified as a bus driver, something bus drivers must do every six years.
Why is the competition important?
“I think it’s important because so many media outlets, they will report on bus accidents or bus driving incidents, but this really sheds them in a positive light. We have some amazing, committed and dedicated drivers out there,” April Johnson, Chairperson for the north region, said.
Johnson said the Road-e-o gives drivers the opportunity to network with other drivers and practice their driving skills. While the drivers wait to receive their scores, they mingled with other drivers in the cafeteria.
Drivers also came sporting bus-themed tee-shirts and decorated their team’s designated cafeteria table with bus-themed decor.
“I have people that are saying: ‘Hey, I screwed up,’ but you learned from that. So it’s a lesson,” Johnson said.
