Yough school bus driver marks 50 years behind the wheel

After half a century of driving students in Westmoreland County, 71-year-old Ruth May says every day remains an adventure.

By JOE NAPSHA
TribLive

Every day is an adventure for Ruth May.

The veteran Yough driver has been moving high school, middle school, elementary and vo-tech students to and from classes for 50 years.

That means May, an East Huntingdon resident, has had a half-century of experiences during her career as a bus driver for the Southmoreland and Yough school districts.

“You don’t know what some kid is going to tell you,” said May, who’s 71.

She began driving a school bus in 1976 because of a lack of money in her family’s livelihood. May had spent the 1970s helping her father on their 139acre farm, milking cows twice a day and getting behind the wheel of a tractor by age 10.

It was a lot of hard work for very little pay.

So May figured driving a school bus would earn her more money while still giving her time to help her father between her morning and afternoon bus runs.

She found the job to her liking.

“It’s easier driving a school bus than working on the farm,” May said.

Before she could get behind the wheel of a school bus, she had to learn how to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission. She mastered that and obtained her school bus driver’s license at age 21.

She started driving the school bus for Southmoreland. She found that the workday and summer vacation fit well with her son’s school schedule.

She was reluctant to take a day off work.

“I don’t want anyone driving the clutch on my bus,” May said.

She made the switch to driving for Yough in the 1990s for economic reasons.

“I went to Yough because they had better benefits,” May said.

Her bus route runs from the high school, middle school and H.W. Good Elementary School in Herminie, following Clay Pike to Rillton. With houses spread out in rural Sewickley Township, many of the stops are right in front of a student’s house, May said.

She has been accident-free for all these years and said she has never had an emergency while driving the bus.

“Ruth is a very good driver and is very conscientious,” said Joyce Dahlstrom, operations manager for Student Transportation of America’s Yough bus terminal along Route 31 in South Huntingdon.

May’s 50-year tenure is a rare milestone in a field heavily shaped by turnover. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the nation’s school bus driving positions remain steady — with a median annual pay of $47,920 — roughly 61,000 annual openings occur across the country as drivers retire or transition to other fields.

The biggest change May has seen in driving the bus these past 50 years is the emphasis on safety.

“Back then, safety wasn’t so stressed. (Now) you can’t let an elementary student off the bus unless a parent is there to meet them. You just can’t give them to anybody,” May said.

When the bus returns to the depot, standard practice is for the bus to be double-checked to ensure that no child is left behind, Dahlstrom said.

“There’s more than what the average person realizes to being a bus driver,” Dahlstrom said.

Despite her years of service in what many would consider a stressful work environment, retirement plans are not on the immediate horizon for May.

The kids are great, as are the parents, she said.

“If I had bad kids, I’d be out of here,” May said.