Three school bus drivers from the region – out of six statewide – were honored June 22 with the Transportation Specialist of the Year award by the Minnesota School Bus Operators Association.
The drivers are Bryan Runkle, who drives for and works as the manager at Grisim School Bus Inc. in Stewartville; Dave Meyer who drives for Bluff Country School Bus Service which serves the Wabasha-Kellogg, Plainview-Elgin-Millville and Lake City school districts; and Kevin Kastler who drives for Kennedy Transportation, which serves Zumbrota-Mazeppa Public Schools.
"It's the best part of my day," said Runkle, who drives for Grisim School Bus Inc. owners Connie and Carl Grisim.
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Picking up students from their morning summer school classes at Stewartville High School, Runkle knows the students by name and knows were each one lives, a byproduct of managing the routes for the students of Stewartville Public Schools and being the fill-in driver who runs whatever route is needed on a given day.
Grisim School Bus Inc. driver and manager Bryan Runkle checks the bus before a summer school route on Thursday, July 1, 2021, in Rochester. Runkle was one of three SE Minnesota winners of the Transportation Specialist of the Year award from the Minnesota School Bus Operators Association. (Traci Westcott /twestcott@postbulletin.com)
Driving a bus is in Runkle's blood. His grandfather, Buddy Glover, owned the company before selling to the Grisims.
"He’s just an all-around good person," said Connie Grisim. "He deals with all the staff, the drivers. He's dedicated to the kids and parents."
In fact, if there's a discipline issue on the bus, Runkle is the one who calls the parents, a call that usually starts out tense and ends "with laughter from the other end of the phone," Grisim said.
All around the Bluff Country
Doug Grisim, who owns Bluff Country School Bus Service, said Meyer brings rare traits to the job, including positive energy, a friendly attitude and charisma as he offers to drive any route and any activity trip.
"He never complains about anything that we ask him to do," Doug Grisim said. "He takes a special interest in each student that he serves. He follows the local sports teams. And he keeps a little candy or gum in his bus and offers that for any kid having a bad day."
Dave Meyer
Coming up on his 80th birthday in August, Meyer said the "kids keep me young."
Meyer started driving a school bus in the early 1960s but then spent 35 years working for Wabasha County in court administration before moving on to a position with the Bank of Alma.
"Out of everything I've done, none have been more rewarding than to deal with these kids," Meyer said. He especially enjoys driving the sports teams. "Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but I’m always there to build them up."
A favored route
Ashley Kennedy said whenever she moves kids to another route not driven by Kevin Kastler, she hears about it.
"He has nothing but positive interactions with parents, either who have called or wrote letters to us," Kennedy said.
Kevin Kastler
She pointed to a family on Kastler's route where a single mother is raising her children. In the afternoons, Kastler drops the kids at the home of their grandparents, who live next door. But if he's not sure anyone's home, Kennedy said, he calls the grandparents or mom first before letting the kids get off the bus.
"It just has to do with loving kids," Kastler said, when asked about his extra effort. "If I had my kids let off on a cold winter day, I’d be concerned about my kids going home alone."
Kastler has been doing this long enough that some of the kids he drives now are the children of kids he drove to and from school when he started driving a school bus. Like his co-honorees, Kastler is sheepishly embarrassed anyone thought to give him an award.
"I never thought I’d be considered for an award," Kastler said. "You do this because you just love kids. We’re the first person to see kids in the morning, and the last one to see them after their day before they get home."
A tough year on the bus
Kastler said 2020 was a tough year on the school bus. Between the rules for wearing masks to sanitizing the bus after each run, "it was an intense year," he said.
Runkle agreed.
As the manager who recruits, trains and schedules drivers in addition to driving routes himself, Runkle said 2020 brought unique challenges. For example, once in-person learning returned, he needed to train all the drivers on sanitation procedures. Also, rather than pick up all kids on a single run, the social distancing requirements forced them to run double routes – one for the high school and middle school kids, another for the younger students.
Of course, Runkle had a really bad day on May 7 when the bus he was driving with six children aboard was struck by a semi tractor-trailer that afternoon.
Grisim School Bus Inc. driver and manager Bryan Runkle drives a summer school route on Thursday, July 1, 2021, in Rochester. Runkle was one of three SE Minnesota winners of the Transportation Specialist of the Year award from the Minnesota School Bus Operators Association. (Traci Westcott /twestcott@postbulletin.com)
"It was amazing how he handled everything," said Connie Grisim.
She said officers from the Minnesota State Patrol and Olmsted County Sheriff's deputies made a point to compliment Runkle on his cool, calm handling of the situation in which none of the kids on the bus was injured.
"They said the tape of that day needed to go in for training," Grisim said.
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