Peter LeBlanc recently celebrated 50 years of driving a school bus for Hathaway High School. The Jeff Davis School Board honored him at a meeting and presented him with a certificate.
Since 1974, LeBlanc’s driven countless miles with precious cargo, making sure that three generations of kids have gotten to and from school, field trips and sports events safely. He’s now driving the grandchildren of some of his first passengers.
But what makes LeBlanc’s story even more interesting is that he inherited the job from his father, who put in 38 1/2 years behind the wheel.
“I’d just gotten out of school when my father retired,” LeBlanc says. “They asked me if I wanted the job.”
He’d attended McNeese, where he planned to major in business administration and play on the basketball team. He’d figured out that business administration wasn’t for him, and being chosen as one of the final 15 basketball team members meant long, late practices and long commutes (he had to live at home in Hathaway, since there was no dorm room available). So he’d quit college. He’d been helping some local farmers and had just begun farming on his own when the offer to drive the bus came up.
“I thought it would be perfect,” he says.
He hadn’t planned on driving for 50 years, however.
“Most people do this for about 30 years,” he says. “I planned to put in my 30 years and retire. Well, I hit 30 years, and I was still young and still felt good, so I kept going.”
He’s quick to point out that, as a father of five, the insurance the job provided was what led him to take it. “You don’t make a lot of money farming, and the insurance was a big help,” he says.
All About The Kids
But that’s not what’s kept him at it for 50 years. That would be his passengers and the relationships he builds with them.
“I just love the kids,” he says. I love being able to put a smile on their faces, to help with problems they may be having at home. A lot of those kids just want a connection and some attention. I can give them that.”
Shorter Routes, More Discipline Problems
As you might expect, LeBlanc has seen some changes in 50 years behind the wheel.
His routes are shorter now, he says. When he started, he drove around 65 to 70 kids in two runs, totaling about 35 miles per day. These days, he’s driving 15 to 18 miles per day, with only one run.
And he says the kids are a bit different now than they were in the ‘70s.
“There are more discipline problems now,” he says. And, he adds, kids had more respect for adults when he first began driving. To add to that, he says, he has little control now over discipline problems on the bus.
“They’ve taken control out of our hands,” he says. “We can’t discipline kids on the bus; we have to report the problems to the school principal,”
Still, he says, there are plenty of parents in his area that support him “100 percent” when it comes to potential problems with their children.
“I had one kid about 40 years ago who was a real troublemaker,” he says. “He really gave me a hard time. “
The boy grew up, married, moved out of the area, then moved his family back to Hathaway to live in the same house he’d lived in growing up. And LeBlanc was driving this young man’s kids to school.
“I remember the first day his kids rode the bus,” LeBlanc said. “He walked out to the bus with them, put his hands on either side of the bus doors, leaned in and said he gave me 100-percent permission to discipline his three kids if there was a problem. He said he knew what I’d been through with him.”
And he says he has that kind of support from the parents of many of his riders.
Passing It Down?
The answer is a resounding no. LeBlanc and his wife, Julia, have five daughters; all have good careers and have no need of the job, he tells me.
“My five girls all have college degrees and great jobs; they’re all doing very well,” he says proudly. One daughter is an architect in the East Baton Rouge area; one is a school counselor; two are retired teachers; one has been a substitute teacher for years. The second obvious question about
the future: When does he plan to give up the route? That question, he says simply, he leaves to his cardiologist.
“I tell him every time I go in that I carry precious cargo, and if he sees any kind of problem at all, just put me an X. No complaints, no hard feelings. If he says I shouldn’t drive, I won’t.”
But, he says, that day isn’t coming very soon. His cardiologist, he says, tells him that his job is “the best thing for me.”
But, especially since his passengers often include at least a few of his 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, he says, he’s not going to take chances.
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