One of our three bus drivers passed away the other evening. He has been battling cancer for a few months and lost the fight.

He and his wife have been driving the school bus for our school since the 60's (so has the other driver). That's over 40 years for each of them! He started shortly after my FIL graduated, and was my DH's bus driver throughout his school years. For morning and afternoons, field trips, ball games.

He wasn't only a bus driver, but a local farmer as well. This last year, he asked my husband to farm his land for him, about 220 acres. He didn't feel he would be physically able to do it. So of course, we are. Actually, DH is baling on it right now.

DH has been asked to be a pall bearer at the funeral. Tommy's daughter has requested that the funeral be in the gym at the school on Wednesday. This way, the children could say goodbye to him (that, and as big as this funeral will probably be, the local mortuary probably won't be big enough). It's wonderful that we are such a small and close community that we can go ahead and have a function such as this at a public school and not have officials shut it down. Funny, I think the entire school board is part of the ceremony anyway.

It's a sad week for our school and community.

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