FARMINGTON – Nearly 100 would-be rodeo stars participated in a competition at Mt. Blue High School on Friday, but not a horse, bull or cow was to be found there.
Ninety-five school bus drivers negotiated 40-foot-long buses through daunting feats during the annual bus rodeo.
Sandy Hammond, bus driver from SAD 43 in Rumford and Mexico, was competing for the third time. A former manufacturing employee, she started driving a bus four years ago.
“I love it,” she said of her job. “I have all little kids this year.”
Negotiating the yellow motorized icons of public schools around cones, sidling up within inches of a curb and stopping within inches of a line require skills most passenger car drivers can’t fathom. But they are skills school bus drivers muster regularly, and often with up to 84 school children aboard.
Friday, during spring break, drivers had a reprieve from the additional responsibilities of children’s safety as they took their own tests. More than 250 drivers from Franklin, Oxford, Androscoggin, Somerset and Kennebec counties attended the mandatory training and federal testing. Almost half chose to participate in the optional qualifying rodeo competition, winners of which will be eligible to compete at a statewide competition.
Veteran bus mechanic David Bachelder of Phillips has worked for SAD 58 for almost 19 years.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said of the rodeo. Bachelder has taken the state championship “a couple of times” and placed sixth in the international competition, which includes drivers from the United States and Canada. He took second place in the conventional bus category Friday, according to organizer David Leavitt, transportation director for SAD 9.
Leavitt has been organizing the event for 10 of the 30 years it has been hosted at Mt. Blue High School.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “But it brings drivers together. They can share war stories. They realize they’re not alone in these situations.”
Driving at speeds in the single digits, drivers were asked to maneuver through five courses of obstacles. For each skill that was tested, drivers are penalized for errors. Like golf, lower scores indicate more skill.
Using six mirrors for visibility, drivers were required to pull up within inches of a curb, swing through three obstacle courses and stop with the front bumper hovering directly over a set line.
School bus operators swerved through bright orange cones at less-than-lightning speeds, squeezed through a tight curve in an offset course and through a double row of cones narrowing from front to back. Points were calculated for every cone hit, some increasing a competitor’s score by as much as 21 points.
Drivers were also required to perform a school bus inspection as they do each day before starting their routes. The bus had five defects that they were expected to find within five minutes, including a missing fire extinguisher tag, missing first aid kit and flares, a non-functioning horn and a loose passenger seat.
Hammond didn’t do as well as she would have liked in the rodeo, having hit the much-feared 21-point cone in the offset course. But, she said, she enjoys coming to the annual training and rodeo.
“I learn a lot; it’s good practice and a good challenge,” she said.
SAD 58 drivers swept the conventional bus category, with John Shaw of Salem and Jane Lane of Kingfield tying for first place and Bachelder winning second.
Drivers from SAD 9 took top prizes in the transit category – the flat-fronted buses – with Ray Wood winning second and Craig Richard taking first with a total score of 30, according to Leavitt.
“It speaks to the skills that SAD 9 drivers have,” said Leavitt. “They’re truly professional.”
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