Sunrise sees bus drivers scattered across Montana

• Bad weather can sabotage a bus route.
• Spending two hours a day on the bus takes it toll on students.
• Finding enough bus drivers is challenging for schools.

DUTTON – A pale, slim line of pink and a meager scattering of yard lights break the dark sky as Tina Loch climbs into her school bus to start one of Montana's longest school bus routes.

In good weather, Loch begins her route east of Dutton at 5:50 a.m. She is not a morning person.

The first two miles of pavement quickly give way to a narrow gravel road. Washboards shake the bus to a deafening degree.

"It's just like a pickup truck. You can slide all over," she says. "Newer buses aren't made for gravel."

School buses travel more than 17 million miles a year across Montana. Loch's route is 155 miles daily, with 14 students along the way.

Today it brings her through dark coulees and past purple-tinged buttes. A flock of geese takes flight in a newly cut field. Deer run across the road. Loch has seen a wolf along the way.

"When it's nice out, you can enjoy the beauty of it," Loch says.

She drives 40 to 45 mph on good days. Winter days, though, are another story.

"You have someone else's child on your bus," she says. "My students come first, and if I don't feel comfortable with conditions, we don't go."

Radio contact is sparse; cell reception nonexistent. The area she travels is often foggy. She periodically calls county road departments when sections need plowing. She knows every spot where the snow gets deep.

Today Loch sees no traffic beyond parents delivering children to her route.

"I'd have a lot of walking to do if my bus decided to quit here," she says.

Today, Loch is a minute or two early to pick up Braxon DiMaggio. She pauses until it's exactly time, 6:35 a.m. She doesn't want him to have to skip breakfast. The third-grader goes directly to the back of the bus. Before long, his feet are sticking into the aisle, and he's fallen asleep.

The sun has risen by Loch's next stop. She makes a point to muster up a happy greeting.

"They need a cheery face that early to start their day," she says. "That's important."

Loch also works part time at the senior center. The school bus is a way to connect with the community now that her own children are grown.

"To hear the little kids excited about going to school is a kick," she says.

Her route has leaned toward older boys lately. With younger children, she's decorated the bus for holidays. At Valentine's Day, it's the Love Bus.

Ashley Aznoe's dad drives her to her bus stop and waits with her in his pickup. The third-grader woke up at 6.

"I don't get to sleep very much," she says.

She usually naps on the bus. Today she listens to music for awhile before slumping over.

Loch pulls a first-grader, Gage Gemar, up the last few steps. He sits behind Ashley at the front of the bus and curls up under his sweatshirt. His feet dangle, and his eyes droop. He's soon asleep.

In preschool, despite knowing the route well, Gage would always ask, "Am I next?"

"I gotta get home," he'd tell Loch. "My mom is probably in tears stuck home with my little sister."

Two boys hop on the bus. They're teenagers and offer "yeah" and "nope" responses to Loch's inquires about their weekend. It's 6:53 a.m.

"Watch the sticky!" she tells the teen with a cinnamon roll. Dust, however, is more a problem than anything the students bring aboard.

The bus is coated with dust, though Loch cleaned it before her route. On hot days, students can lower windows, but dust cakes so thickly that the windows become difficult to close. Loch keeps a duster in the first seat and tells kids, "If you can write your name in the dust on your seat, grab the duster."

"It's extra work to keep the bus up," she says. She spent hours getting it polished for the first day, "and it didn't take long to mess it up."

The rocks and the rattle take their toll on the bus. Loch has had two back windows break. She's not a mechanic and listens for unusual noises.

Nobody is doing last-minute homework, which is good as their penmanship would be atrocious amid the vibrations.

Brooke Timmerman is among the last students Loch picks up. The senior has ridden Loch's bus since she was a fifth-grader, and Loch has watched her grow up.

Brooke listens to music on the way to school, and has no envy for those who can walk to school.

"Riding the bus saves on gas," Brooke says. "I don't mind it. Living in the county is better than town, I guess."

For sleepy 10th-grader Royden Mehrer, getting on the bus at "7, maybe" instead of 6:50 would be ideal, especially if it was 7 tomorrow morning.

"I want a whole day of sleep," he says.

Royden spends two hours on the bus every day.

"It's alright," he says. If he lived across the street from school, "I'd probably hang out with my friends more."

Kellan and Rylan Doheny, fifth- and sixth-graders, drive a half mile to their grandma's home to catch the bus. Kellan always sleeps on the bus, and he's out now. Rylan says he's not tired.

The boys catch the bus at 7:15, but Rylan theorized 6:45 would be the perfect time, if it meant he could get to school earlier.

Rylan has football practice in the afternoon, so his mom will fetch him in Dutton.

Dependency on the school bus limits sports options for some of the children she's driven over the years, Loch says.

"It's just too far for families to drive," she says.

In Montana, 248 bus routes top 100 miles a day, according to the Montana Office of Public Instruction. Red Lodge Public Schools has the longest route, with a driver logging 253 miles daily.

Some of the longest bus routes in the area are a Cut Bank route that's 180 miles and a Sunburst route of 164 miles daily. The longest route for Chester Joplin Inverness Public Schools was 152 miles per day; Dodson has a 192-mile route, and Malta has a 220-mile route.

Big Sandy's longest route is 176 miles; Fort Benton nearly the same. Augusta has a 158-mile route, and Columbia falls a 182-mile route.

Parents must grant permission for trips longer than an hour. Loch said most like to keep the bus running to their place because the roads are better maintained if a school bus needs them.

Finding drivers to travel all those miles is tough.

"There's been mornings I've been sick, and there was no one to drive for me. I had to pull over a few times to throw up," Loch says.

Dutton-Brady has three route drivers, a substitute and some activity drivers, says Superintendent D.K. Brooks.

Much of the challenge of finding drivers "has to do with the license process and having to get periodic testing for prohibited substances," Brooks said. "There's the cost to do the license, though most school districts pay for the physical. People don't want to do it with the responsibility, and you have to sandwich any other work between driving the morning and afternoon route."

Bus driver wages are determined by miles and experience. Loch's route is so long already, 155 miles daily, she's maxed out. A new kindergartner adds a couple miles this year.

The route evolves with the families in the district, as a new ranch hand with young children arrives, a couple divorces and moves to town or a farmer's teenager graduates. School consolation stretches routes.

"There's talk we're going to get two more families," she says, excited at the prospect.

Loch's route takes her past two former schools, Knees and Diamond Valley, which have farm equipment parked on their lawn these days. Farms are large, with more machinery and far fewer people.

"It's a totally different world," she says, passing an abandoned farmhouse. "You think about how people settled way out here."

On this day, the boys in the back of the bus are chatty until the bus nears school and they start girding their loins.

Loch's bus arrives at school at 7:44, a touch early. School starts at 8 a.m., but a few students eat breakfast at school.

"I hope I can keep up my time in winter or we'll have to start earlier," Loch says.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Inbody at 791-1490 or by email at kinbody@ greatfallstribune.com.