Queens of the road: Three generations of women drive school bus in Moorhead

MOORHEAD — While driving around Fargo-Moorhead, Shelby Fry sometimes catches herself taking a really wide turn at a corner.

When that happens, she reminds herself she’s behind the wheel of her little Mazda3 sedan — not the 40-foot yellow school bus she drives five days a week.

She doesn’t have to look far to find two co-workers who can commiserate. Because Fry’s mom, Angie Richards, and grandma, Diane Anderson, also drive school buses for Richards Transportation Service, Inc. in Moorhead, an independent contractor for the Moorhead Public School District.

That makes three generations of women who get up well before the sun does to ensure Moorhead students in special-education programs get to school safely and on time.

“Getting to know the kids is the best part,” says Shelby, who was recruited into the job by her mother in 2018.

“And then you hope to get them again next year,” says Angie.

“It took a lot of coaxing for Angie to get me to do it, but I love it,” says DianeAngie, a sharp-as-a-tack 80-year-old.

Chris Flynn / The Forum

The three women turned out to be the ideal fit for essential positions that can be notoriously difficult to fill , especially since COVID.

And they happened to bring the necessary combination of empathy, patience and strength needed to transport young people of so many different ages, personalities and needs.

They also bring plenty of fun. When their passengers color a picture for them, they will tape it on the ceilings of their buses.

When holidays roll around, they’ll decorate their bus cabins with green shamrocks or little Christmas trees.

Tammy Swift / The Forum

Every Halloween, Angie and her bus aide dress up in costumes. One year, they were Batman and Robin; another year, Ms. Frizzle and Liz Ard from “The Magic Schoolbus.”

When Diane transports her 17 preschoolers to and from school, they sometimes get bored or agitated. So she’ll pop in a tape of kids’ songs (including the obligatory “Wheels on the Bus”), and they’ll sing along.

“It calms some of the kids down too,” she said.

That sense of fun is obvious when the three women met with The Forum at Moorhead’s Fry’n Pan recently to talk about life as three “driven” women.

They laugh, finish each other's sentences and tease.

“Just remember that driving gets better with age. It goes from worse, to ‘eh’ to awesome,” Shelby jokes, while motioning from her grandmother to her mother to herself.

“It goes the other way,” Diane quips, without missing a beat. “I’ve seen her drive.”

Chris Flynn / The Forum

Diane is often known as “Grandma" at Richards Transportation Service. Her daughter and granddaughter started it by calling her that over the company's CB radio, so now other people do too.

Her school bus kids will run up to her in a store and say, “Hi, grandma!” When their parents step in to correct them, "Grandma" tells them there's no need.

After all, she is a bona fide grandmother, with six great-grandkids and so many grandchildren that she can’t keep track of whether there’s eight or nine of them right now.

And if kids who aren’t related to her also associate her with such a positive role, she has no issues with it.

After all, “You can never have too many grandmas,” Angie says.

Diane may be the matriarch of this trio, but she was the last to come onboard at Richards Transportation.

“I was scared,” she admits. “The bus is kind of big. And then you have to know different things under the hood and how to park and back. And I thought, ‘Ohmigosh, I can do that in a car, but in a bus?’”

“Now look at you,” Angie says.

“Yeah, I can back my own bus into the bus barn now,” Diane says.

It was actually Angie who started it all in 2017. Back then, she’d been retired for just three months after working in the medical-supply field for 20 years. She already was bored stiff.

Then a new friend, Lacey Richards, suggested Angie apply to be a bus aide for the bus/coach company owned by Lacey’s dad, Mark Richards.

Bus aides are onboard to monitor student safety and help with tasks such as securing wheelchairs or buckling in passengers.

Besides working as an aide, Angie helped clean the Richards’ buses and coaches in between trips. Eventually, I was “suckered into being a driver,” she says, laughing.

While she expected to find a second career at Richards Transportation, she did not expect to find a second spouse. But she and Mark, who are both widowed, clicked. They married in 2020.

By then, Angie’s daughter and mom had joined the team.

“Grandma” Anderson had worked for a sporting apparel company for 15 years when she finally caved and decided to follow in her daughter’s and granddaughter’s tire tracks.

She's found the job more rewarding — both emotionally and financially. “She can drive split shifts and have a little time off during the day, and still make more than she did in her full-time job before this,” Angie says.

Mark Richards said he hand-picks the drivers who will take the special-needs routes; these three fit the bill.

“It takes the right person to do that job,” he said. “I knew them before I put them on those routes. I love all three of them.”

Richards said the women are so devoted to their students that they will sometimes attend their school programs because they know the kids would like to see them there.

“That’s just their nature,” he said. “That’s who they are.”

All agree the students are the best part of their jobs.

Shelby especially has a way with her students. She started out as a bus aide in 2018, and admits she misses being able to sit with the kids so she can visit, laugh and make up games with them. But as the driver, she needs to keep her attention on the road.

She’s even considered becoming a paraprofessional in the school system, which would give her more one-on-one interaction with students. But then she might not get to see as many kids as she currently does.

So for now, she stays behind the wheel and manages to engage her young passengers when the opportunity arises.

“I have one kid who I was told never talked to any of his bus drivers before. It took him all year to say goodbye to me,” she says. “And now I have him singing on my bus. And even his mom was like, ‘He doesn’t even sing for me at home.’”

Sarah Coomber is a parent whose son, Cedar, rode on Shelby's route. "She always rolled (no pun intended) with whatever mood he was in, greeting him warmly and finding ways to connect. Plus, Shelby is a natural encourager — I don't think she even has to try. It just comes naturally," Coomber said. "Honestly, when we were making the decision about moving within Moorhead at the end of 2023, one of the items on my 'Why we should not move' list was that I didn't want to lose Shelby as our son's bus drive."

A school bus driver's day starts early.

Diane wakes up at 4:30 a.m. so she can get to the bus station in Kragnes, Minn., by 6 a.m. to pick up her bus, No. 232. As all the drivers do, she conducts an under-the-hood “pre-trip,” in which she makes sure fluid levels are OK, lights are working and everything is road-ready.

She leaves the station by 6:15 to pick up her first passenger of the morning by 6:50 a.m.

Her route ends at 8:30 a.m., but then she heads out again at 10 a.m. to pick up preschoolers.

Shelby also drives two different routes, logging 150 miles a day.

The three women provide transportation to Robert Asp, Horizon and Moorhead High School, as well as preschool.

Along the way, they meet plenty of challenges, starting with the area’s notoriously harsh weather.

“I feel safer in my bus than in my car,” Shelby says. “I don’t feel like I slide on ice as much as my car would, but when you do slide on ice in a bus, it’s a lot scarier.” 

Even more frightening? Distracted drivers who text while driving or ignore stop signs — including the red, blinking stop arm on the bus. 

As drivers of students with special needs, the three share an extra layer of responsibility. 

For some of the students, they need to ensure there’s either hand-to-hand contact (a parent physically meets them at the bus), or eye-to-eye contact (the driver can see the parent at the door or close by).

If a parent forgets to meet the child, the bus drivers must either sit and wait for dispatch to locate the parent or, if all else fails, take the child back to the school until the parent can pick them up.

A less serious challenge? A busload of backseat drivers.

“I’ll hit a curb and they’ll say, ‘Do that again, do that again,'" Diane says, smiling.

Chris Flynn / The Forum

In fact, some of that driving "assistance" is provoked by the mischief-makers who drive the No. 239 and No. 236 buses (her daughter and granddaughter, respectively).

Diane recalls pulling out of a snug parking space at Robert Asp while her daughter and granddaughter looked on.

Shelby instructed all the students on her bus to roll down their windows and stare at Anderson while she navigated the tricky maneuver.

“I saw all these kids looking at me,” she recalls, chuckling.

Despite the occasional bad roads and careless drivers, these three still like their work.

Diane's voice fills with wonder as she describes getting a $25 gift certificate to Olive Garden from one grateful family.

“When we got that last year, it was like, ‘Wow, thank you,’” she recalls. “And they said, ‘Well, we appreciate you taking care of our child.’”

Just as valuable are the handmade gifts, notes and shows of appreciation. Shelby fondly recalls a child who gave her a dinosaur made from a handprint and labeled, “Merry Roar-mas!”

Even better: “When they give you a hug when they get off the bus,” Diane says.

At 80, her vision and response time remains sharp, although she jokes, “my bus has a few scratches in it.”

But she has no intention of quitting anytime soon. “I’ll do it until I can’t do it anymore,” she says.

Angie says working together means they get to see each other on the road or catch up with each other at the bus station.

“It’s nice because I can keep track of her,” Angie says of her mom. “If she’s not at work, then my heart starts to beat really fast and I think, ‘What’s wrong?’”

As for recruiting other family members into the bus-driving game, Angie says she's done.

“Even my granddaughter has said, ‘Grandma, someday I’m going to be a school bus driver just like you.’ We’ll see if that happens. She’ll probably be a lawyer,” Angie says.

And they all laugh.