Claudia Garcia can finally say goodbye to a round-trip school bus commute of 160 miles, the nation's longest.
A high school will open Monday in the remote town of Terlingua, sparing the 16-year-old the 80-mile ride to the nearest high school in Alpine, via the Big Bend deserts.
"All the traveling wore us out, getting up and having to spend so much time on the bus, then getting home late," said Claudia, who will be a junior this year.
"Then some of us have jobs or we have chores. It was kind of hard to manage all of that in one day. Time would go fast."
The trip began as early as 5:30 a.m. for students in Terlingua, 300 miles southeast of El Paso, and other nearby communities. Because of the long commute, school days were stretched into 12-hour ordeals.
It has been that way since the 1960s. Area schools just went up to the eighth grade. That will change Monday when Terlingua opens the doors to about 40 high school students.
The classrooms probably never would have been built if not for the determined efforts of the area's several hundred people.
Local people formed the Big Bend Education Corp., which managed to raise more than $100,000. Many people volunteered time for construction and some donated materials, like the cement for the foundation.
Classes will be held in portable structures while the corporation seeks more money to complete the main building and library, but the commute will now be about five minutes.
"It's amazing how they worked so hard," said Yvonne Rodriguez, Claudia's mother. "We're going to have a school for the children this year."
