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The bus driver has made friends of students and colleagues
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Sara Bayless, who has driven school bus for the Weathersfield district since 1974, plans to retire in June. She lives next to the school in Mineral Ridge.
MINERAL RIDGE
Sara Bayless, 80, retires June 30 from Weathersfield schools with 40 years of bus driving under her belt.
Bayless, whose husband of 50 years, Jerry, died “going on eight years ago,” lives on Stewart Street, right next to the school, and walks to work every day.
She said she drove to school once — just to say she had done it.
Driving a school bus was never something that she planned to do.
“I had no inkling about being a bus driver,” she said. “When I was putting my youngest son on the bus for school, the bus drivers I had been talking to convinced me to start driving bus.”
That was in August 1974.
“I was able to show up to work every day,” she said. “I am grateful my health has held up. I’m glad I can keep going.”
She added that some of the parents may be surprised to learn how old she is, but she passed the physical and the driver’s test.
She said her memories of the decades of being a bus driver are “logged up” in her head, “and I can’t separate them.”
“I’m driving kids that I drove parents of — and even grandparents of — on the bus,” she said.
She said Weathersfield is a very nice community to grow up in, and things run fairly smoothly.
“I’ve had several go-arounds with some boys who thought they were the boss instead of me. We became good friends later,” Bayless recalled.
She recalls the worst day was in 1985, when a tornado hit the Niles and Hubbard areas.
She was a backup driver and chaperone on a bus trip with girls who won the state championship in softball at Ashland College.
They stayed for two days at the college until the tournament ended, then headed home to the destruction from the tornado.
She recalls being with another driver, and both were calling home to make sure everyone was OK, but the phone lines weren’t working.
Bayless said she has enjoyed working with the other bus drivers in Mineral Ridge.
Five women bus drivers would take the kids to their football game, contests, band competition or softball game — and while the kids were busy, the drivers would go to see different places by themselves.
That work friendship spilled over into life away from school as the women enjoyed one another’s company for lunch or dinner.
She plans to start her retirement by golfing this summer and traveling.
“Then we’ll just go from there,” she said. “The time has come to stop.”
She already has traveled by car over many parts of the country since her husband was in the Air Force and was moved around. She originally is from West Virginia, but after they went to Mineral Ridge to visit, they decided to make it their home.
She has four sons — Martin, Ronald, John and Richard — all of whom are married; 14 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Two of her sons have remained in the area, and two others are in South Carolina and North Carolina.