Couple parks school buses after combined 106 years

On the last school day, Fran and Jan VanRinsum drove into retirement after transporting thousands of children — in addition to various hamsters, mice, fish and snakes — to and from school over a combined 106 years.

More than a million miles later, Fran, 89, and Jan, 84, reminisced about their careers in their Somers home on June. 14. Outside, two big yellow school buses were parked.

“I always say we had two children of our own, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, and we have 7,500 special kids,” Jan said, estimating how many students they have transported.

Fran began driving school buses 56 years ago to supplement the family income from farming. As the farm grew in acreage it was difficult for him not to dedicate every hour of daylight to the harvest.

“Come harvest time in the fall of the year, boy, you just hated to leave the combine sit in the field,” Fran said. “So one day the wife says, ‘Well,’ she says, ‘why don’t I learn to drive and you can take it in the morning and I can bring it home at night.’”

It sounded like a plan. He taught her how to drive a 72-passenger school bus with no power steering. Fran used “horrible” to describe the early-day bus, the upside being every bus thereafter would be easier to drive.

Over the next few months Jan practiced. Fran didn’t want to leave any details amiss in preparing her for the long road ahead, which would cover the next 50 years. Jan learned how to change a tire and drive through snow drifts that decades ago often stood two to four feet high.

The basic rule on the VanRinsum buses seemed universal — remain seated for safety.

“Yep,” Fran said. “That means sit down. Don’t get up and move around.”

“One thing we always said on our buses was that safety was the most important word on our bus,” Jan said, later adding, “We carry the most precious cargo on earth.”

Apparently, students wanted formal, written rules.

“Kids would get on and they didn’t know. ‘Well, what’s the rules Fran? You’re hollerin’ at us to do this or that — what’s the rules?” he said. “And they were right.”

That evening Fran and Jan sat down to write down their rules.

“We worked very hard. What was it — 10 rules?” Fran pondered.

“Ten rules,” Jan said, nodding.

“And we put ’em on a piece of whiteboard and we plastered ’em right up in front. That morning driving, kids got on the bus and you could’ve heard a pin drop,” Fran said, as word about the rules traveled around the bus.

“The very last statement we put on there was, ‘punishment will be at the discretion of the driver,’” Fran said, dropping his hand on the kitchen table, his knuckles making a light knock. “This is where it gets a little funny.”

Fran overheard a discussion between two young students — one a former neighbor named Sandy and her friend. The pair usually sat behind him.

“Sandy leaned over and said ‘What does discretion mean?’ The other girl said ‘I don’t know, I think it was something we did in biology,’” Fran said with a laugh.

The good memories are as plentiful as the routes were long. For several years, Fran’s route took him by a Dairy Queen location where it became a tradition to stop in for ice cream every other Friday on the way home. Jan would also make an ice cream stop on her route once a month.

“One kid said it would be nice if we could get an ice cream cone. I said, ‘Do you guys want to stop every Friday night? It will take 10 more minutes to get home,” Fran recalled. “They didn’t care,”

So they made a deal that spoke to the mutual respect and trust Fran and Jan had with their teenage passengers.

“I made a deal. This is one thing where we were kind of sticking our necks out because once the kids are on the bus we have to take them home,” Fran said. “I said, ‘Now don’t any of you kids jump in another car and go home with a friend because if you do and you have a wreck, I can get my neck in a big sling,’ and I said, ‘I have to be honest with you.’ And they never did,” Fran said — for the next 24 years on that route.

While the pickups would change at various rural elementary schools, the destination was always the same — Flathead High School. Driving students this age, the VanRinsums ended up in roles that extended beyond bus driver.

“You know, we’re not just their bus driver,” Jan said. ‘Especially today, you can be their mom, their dad, their counselor, their teacher and a friend. There’s some kids who get up in the morning and they see no one. You’re the first person.

“There’s one girl who is still very special to me,” Jan said, noting she and her husband still keep in touch with the student, who is now a successful adult. “She was 14 years old. She had a real hard life. She said ‘Jan I’m going to quit school tomorrow.’ I said, ‘No you’re not.’ I said, ‘Just go another week,’ and this went on for a whole year. She was doing very well. We always talked and I always asked how things were. [One day] she said, ‘I joined ROTC.’ I said, ‘That’s good. Learn everything you can from it.’ To make a long story short, she graduated from high school, was No. 1 in ROTC, went into the service maybe 15,18 years ago and is doing very well.”

When summers approach there was always someone would inevitably ask, “Are you glad to be getting rid of those brats?”

“And, you know, we always say, ‘you know they’re not brats,’” Jan said. “You only hear about the 1 percent. You never hear about the 99 who are absolutely fantastic. But with that 1 percent, you haven’t walked in their shoes. And you don’t know what the circumstances are.”

The respect for the VanRinsums extended outside the school. Fran, who was active in bus safety at the state level and held fire-safety trainings with drivers, was awarded the 2000 School Bus Driver of the Year award from the Montana Highway Patrol and Office of Public Instruction.

Before retiring, the VanRinsums drove a Lakeside Elementary to Flathead High School route. While they started out owning their own buses as was the norm at the time, for the last 14 years they have driven for Treasure State Transit and “a fantastic crew.”

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.