Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408220046
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MELISSA DEVAUGHN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Age: 59
Family: Wife, Edith; two grown children, Keith and Pam.
Most challenging part of driving a bus: Realizing the huge responsibility. "If you can use the word 'cargo,' this cargo is not replaceable."
Most rewarding part of driving a bus: "Comforting the young children at the beginning of the school year."
Worst habit of children riding the bus: "They're always trying to get up and change seats."
Best habit of those same children:"When the weather is bad and they know it is difficult driving, they become very well-behaved."
Most memorable bus driver: "I didn't have a bus driver where I went to school in Chicago. We walked to school."
Favorite thing to do when not driving bus: "I fish occasionally, but my main hobby is golf." Smith's favorite courses are the Blacksburg Municipal and the Virginia Tech golf courses.
If you see Montgomery County bus No. 25, be sure to wave - it's probably driven by Junior Smith, the county's bus driver of the year.
Smith, who moved to Southwest Virginia from Chicago as a production supervisor at the AT&T plant in Fairlawn before its closing, happened upon school bus driving after seeing an advertisement for the job.
"I was retired and had plenty of time, and I knew I wanted to do something where I was working with people," Smith said. "I especially liked the idea of working with young people, so I gave it a shot."
Smith has had no regrets since he began his job in 1991, and although he drives the same bus route each day, delivering students to Margaret Beeks Elementary School and Blacksburg High School, each day is different, he says.
"I drive through the Ellett Valley area and it is very pretty in the morning," he said. "I see deer all the time" - but luckily he has not hit one!
"Junior is very easygoing, even-tempered and very dependable," said Skip Causey, Smith's supervisor. "You don't hear from him often - he doesn't feel the need to hear himself on the radio" like some of the other bus drivers.
Smith, who was voted bus driver of the year with 50 percent more votes than any other of the county's 100 bus drivers, had no idea he was going to receive the award last June - and that's the way his friends wanted it.
Two bus drivers, husband and wife Rusty and Kathy Price, devised an elaborate scheme to get Smith to the School Board office the night of the awards banquet, telling him they needed advice looking at some real estate. Meanwhile, Smith had been told that Rusty Price was going to win the award and that he must get Price to the awards ceremony.
"It was kind of like a double-sham," Causey said. "[Smith] had no idea - we really got him good."
by CNB