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Special Delivery: Nikiski bus driver cruises into 44th school year

Tuesday marked the first day of a new chapter for students across the Kenai Peninsula. It marked the the first day of a final chapter for one of the district’s bus drivers.

It’s just a few minutes until the first bell at Nikiski North Star Elementary. Kids and moms and dads are getting in last minute pictures before classes begin for the year. Her first round of pick ups and drop offs completed, Colleen Puch climbs down from the bus, with a surprise lunch, on the first day of her 44th year behind the wheel.

 

There’s a good reason she’s still at it after all this time. She’s driven her own kids to school, and their kids..

 

“And this year, I get to drive my great grandson. It’s wonderful. I love my kids. I respect them and they respect me. And I think it’s going to be a great year.”

 

Colleen started driving buses in Ohio, where she picked it up as a side gig to supplement work on the farm. Then, a little more than 30 years ago, the family moved to Alaska.

 

“When I moved up here, my own children decided I was unhappy. Next thing I knew, they drove me to the bus shop over on K-Beach. And I said ‘what am we doing here?’ and they said ‘mom, go and put your application in, you’re not happy.’ And I’ve been driving ever since and that was in 1985.”

In all those years, she says not a lot has changed. Safety is a higher priority than it was three or four decades ago, but otherwise…

 

“If you get on top of the kids, they behave. If you let them get away the first day of school, you’re going to have problems.”

 

But, over the course of a career behind the wheel, eagle eyes on that big mirror looking back over kids, some trouble bubbles up.

 

“One time, I had to write up my own daughter back in Ohio. Somebody was picking on her little brother and she got up and slugged the kid. She still talks to me about that, ‘remember mom, when you had to write me up.’ And what was so funny is she was the quietest person on the bus. I couldn’t believe she slugged that guy. That kid was like a sixth grader and she was only a third or fourth grader because her brother was in first grade, and she slugged him.”

 

But even if she’s had to play the heavy at times, Puch (pronounced like Winnie the Poo) says she’s known since the beginning this was her kind of job.

 

“I worked in the accounting office at Sears before I started driving bus. Absolutely, positively hated it. Started driving bus and within two weeks I knew I loved it. It’s been good. I wouldn’t trade it for any kind of job going.”