The best of the bunch

Dale Blatterman never rode a school bus, but for the last 10 years, he’s driven one every day.

“I’d never been on a bus in my life. I always walked,” said Blatterman.

It’s dark when he gets to the bus lot in the mornings. In the winter, he arrives at 5 a.m. to warm up all the buses.

Last Tuesday, as he does every morning, he walked around his bus, No. 104, with a flashlight to check the tires and the lights before he climbed in.

No. 104 is a new bus, and it replaced the bus he drove for nine years.

“Now that I’ve got it, I love it. It’s got all these gizmos, a push button door, tinted windows,” he said.

At 6:18 a.m., he pulled out to start his route. He headed along West 32nd Street, and calls came over the radio reminding drivers to use their strobe lights in the rain.

“I was scared to death to drive a school bus. I didn’t know what the kids were like, if they’d chew me up and spit me out. But they’re good kids,” he said. Blatterman knows the names all the children on his route.

Blatterman was named First Student Employee of the Year for the region, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Louisiana, and Missouri, this year. He was named bus driver of the year for Sedalia three times, and was bus driver of the month four times.

At 6:33 a.m., he picked up his first two passengers at Quisenberry School.

“Hi, Ben. Hi, Becky. Did you get wet?” he asked as they climbed aboard.

He turned around and drove back down Quisenberry Road, pointing out new construction along his route. Two other passengers climbed in at 6:35 a.m., two more just a few houses down, and three at the end of Brook Drive, which the bus can’t get down.

“I was out here some time and the weather came in — tornado type of situation — and they told us all to pull over and find a house. So the first house I found didn’t have a basement, but they let us all in,” he said. He and the seven or eight students waited out the storm with the family.

Blatterman drives one route in the morning, and picks up kindergarteners through 12th-graders. He makes two runs in the afternoon, one for students of Smith-Cotton High School and Sedalia Middle School, and one for students at Skyline Elementary School. More students ride the bus in the afternoons than in the mornings. The students are generally quiet and sleepy on the morning ride.

Blatterman slowed down in front of a white house with no student waiting out front. “Must be sick; she hasn’t missed a day all year,” he said and pulled away.

His attention was drawn to an overturned car in a ditch, which he said was not there the night before. He stopped to make sure the driver wasn’t hurt, and that the police had been called.

“He always says hello or goodbye,” said Kiersten Kelly, 10, a student at Skyline. “If you come on the bus with a sad face, he asks what’s wrong and makes you feel better.”

The bus was quiet, with students talking in low voices and a few sleeping. Blatterman typically walks the bus before returning lot after his route to make sure no one has overslept his or her stop.

“Usually, if there is a sleeper, the ones next to them will wake them up,” he said.

Some students got on the bus with a backpack, some toted an instrument case, a few carried just a notebook, but Kathleen Matz boarded holding a plate of muffins for the driver Tuesday. Blatterman said he has received baked goods from students, and has passed out his own homemade fudge to his riders.

Every day, Blatterman’s bus passes the construction on the new high school on his way to make his first drop-off at the middle school.
“I get to see their progress every day,” he said. “Lot of work going on.”

By 7:20 a.m., most students seem awake. About half of his charges depart at the middle school, and about an eighth at the high school.

“When they get (to be) 16, they get a car, and then they leave you,” he said. “But they still remember you.”

The rest got off the bus at Skyline, usually around 7:30 a.m., where they are usually some of the first bus passengers to arrive.

“I thought he was really nice. But the bad thing is, he turns on country music,” in the mornings, said 11-year-old Lianna Prokopchuk.

Blatterman has a book with all the letters and cards sent to First Student for his award nomination, and the certificates and accolades from students and parents.

“Dale isn’t wonderful simply because he is a safe and focused driver. ... He stands out because he cares,” wrote student Leah Brown. “To me, he is more like a friend or beloved uncle than a bus driver.”

agualtieri@sedaliademocrat.com