OXFORD — He didn’t wear tie-dye but the chairman of the Oxford Hills School District Board of Directors said he boarded a school bus “incognito” late at night on July 3 to travel back and forth to the Nateva Festival with hundreds of young people to make sure things went OK.

“I thought people were well behaved,” said 77-year-old Ron Kugell on Tuesday, the day after he told the Board of Directors of his adventure of riding several school buses with loads of young concert-goers from the Oxford Plains Speedway on Route 26 to the fairgrounds about 2 miles down the road.

“I rode various buses sort of incognito,” Kugell told fellow directors at Monday night’s meeting. “But I didn’t have any tie-die.”

Kugell, who was police chief in Oxford for 41 years and a retired assistant principal at the Oxford Hills School, said he decided to board the buses to ensure that the school bus drivers and festival patrons were safe.

The three-day, multi-stage event put on by Nateva Festivals LLC of Newton, Mass., drew more than 10,000 people to the Oxford Fairgrounds on Route 26 on the Oxford/Norway town line from Friday, July 2, through Sunday, July 4, to hear such bands as Further, Jakob Dylan, and the Flaming Lips. Tickets were sold to people in every state in the country and to others in counties such as Japan and England.

Because of concern about traffic on the busy state route, the festival organizers and school department came to an agreement to lease 10 school buses and hire 12 to 15 local school bus drivers to transport concert-goers from parking at the speedway to the fairgrounds and back. The move not only was a profitable one for the school district but it helped keep concert traffic off the streets.

When a few school board members expressed concern about the safety of the bus drivers, Kugell decided to quietly board the school buses and ride back and forth between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.

“Everyone was very positive,” said Kugell, who said depending on the time of the evening, the buses were either heavily loaded or not.

Kugell said the experience wasn’t intimidating at all despite the fact that he is 77 years old and most of the riders were young people.

“It was extremely well organized,” he said.

Kugell said the school’s agreement to lease the buses did two things. It helped keep traffic off the road and it put money into the pockets of the school district and the school bus drivers who hopefully spent it on local merchants, he said. The school district made sure the buses were covered for damages, he said.

Although the school department is still assessing their profit, Business Manager Cathy Fanjoy said as a bonus, the district received a $5,000 donation from Frank Chandler, president of the Nateva Festival to be used by the music department.

“It was a very positive experience,” said Fanjoy, who added that if the community wants to do it again next year, the district would be agreeable.

“They (school bus drivers) liked the money and it was nice to have local people getting the money to spend on local businesses,” Kugell said.

Although he said he saw a few people who had to be admonished for carrying “cans of soda” there were no real problems on the bus.

School board member Nick DiConzo said he also heard positive feedback from the bus drivers and that it was a profitable night for the school district.

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