Peninsula School District bus driver reaches 48 years of safely shuttling students

What started out as a joke between friends transformed into a career that has spanned nearly 50 years.

Karen Pierson, 78, first applied to be a Peninsula School District bus driver at the urging of a friend who knew her experience driving a farm truck and four-horse trailer.

“It kind of started out as a joke,” Pierson explained. “(And) it turned out I really enjoyed it.”

Pierson has been driving for PSD for 48 years — the longest tenured bus driver in Washington state — having retired in 1997 but returning as a substitute driver as needed.

The application process was quick; Pierson applied, drove the training route the next day and did a ride-along with a current bus driver that Friday, March 28, 1969.

“I rode with him Friday. After that he quit and I started Monday morning,” Pierson said.

When Pierson first started driving, the district had 28 bus routes, which has expanded now into 76 routes between 15 schools.

“I helped plan the (school bus) routes,” she said. “We cut them down so the kids would spend less time on the buses.”

After 48 years of bus driving, Karen’s husband, Leo, is most amazed at the hundreds of miles she has driven without ever leaving Pierce County.

“One of my phenomenons is how she drove 200 miles a day without leaving the county,” Leo said.

Pierson spent almost 14 years at the beginning of her career driving the Fox Island route, which then averaged 184 miles a day.

The couple has been married for 58 years after meeting at a dance at the Belfair Barn. Karen grew up in Port Orchard while Leo was born and raised in Gig Harbor, the grandson of the Dimick family, one of the original Gig Harbor settlers.

As a senior driver, Pierson has helped train new drivers and would switch between different bus routes to help fill in when needed, giving her a familiarity with the district that makes her invaluable in her current role as a substitute driver.

Along with her years of bus driving, Pierson has also been active in the Public School Employees of Peninsula Bus Driver’s Unit — an affiliate of Public School Employees of Washington/SEIU Local 1948 — the union to which the drivers belong.

She has held a number of offices in the union, including president for her last three years before she retired as a full-time driver.

“I’ve held all the offices,” Pierson said. “I’ve had an office in the union all the time. I always felt it was important.”

With so many hours behind the wheel and on the streets shuttling PSD students to school and home again, Pierson’s biggest concern has always been safety.

“I’m a real stickler for safety,” she said. “I expect the older kids to take the younger kids under their wing.”

But the biggest safety concerns for Pierson don’t come from the students, but from outside her bus in the form of bicyclists and impatient drivers.

“They’re impatient and they want to go around you,” she said of drivers. “I know it’s annoying to have to stop, but these drivers have to think that it might be their kids out there.”

Road rage incidents and drivers passing buses — even with lights flashing — is a common occurrence during her routes. Also common, especially in town, are bicyclists who don’t stop for buses or pass on the right, speeding through crowds of parents and children waiting for the bus.

“It really gets bad sometimes. I don’t know how to deal with it,” Pierson said. “It’s sad.”

Security concerns with students on the bus are much rarer than the road rage incidents, and interaction with the students is that reason why Pierson has been driving for so many years.

“I enjoy the kids. You have your problem kids, but I don’t think they’re really problem kids. They’re just seeking attention,” she said. “They’re just being kids. They just try. They have to test you.”

With three children and two grandchildren — as well as 58 years of marriage under her belt — very little from these students can phase Pierson.

Students that Pierson drives now are frequently the children — and sometimes grandchildren — of the students she drove at the beginning of her career.

Throughout her career, her expectations and treatment of the students on her bus has remained consistent: each child is greeted when they arrive and bid farewell when they depart, and common courtesy and safety is insisted upon under her watch.

“If you have someone on the bus who makes them behave and keeps them calm, then they show up at school ready for school,” Leo remarked.

Karen agreed that she can help set the tone of the day for the students: “We are the first ones they see in the morning and the last ones they see at night.”

The students are what keep Pierson returning to drive for PSD and what she looks forward to during her routes.

“It’s a good job. I think it’s an excellent job for someone with kids,” she said. “When I started this I never thought it would be this long. I just love it.”

This story was originally published December 29, 2016 at 10:31 AM with the headline "Peninsula School District bus driver reaches 48 years of safely shuttling students."