THE bell is ringing change on the school bus run Kevin Sutton has driven for the past 40 years.
Never missing a day in four decades of collecting students and driving them to Boort District School, Kevin and wife Sheryl have sold their bus run to son Jamie and wife Jacinta.
It’s change that Kevin say might allow him a day off during school terms although he intends to stay behind the wheel a little longer travelling the Charlton and Wycheproof roads twice a day in a 22-seater to help Jamie.
“When I started, we had a Bedford 40-seater bus and carried 41 kids,” Kevin said.
“Then we changed over to a Mercedes ... worst decision I ever made. It was a lemon ... but we needed a bigger bus and it had 45 seats. A run of droughts saw cockies selling out and empty houses with no kids and that meant less students to travel on the bus.”
Three years ago Kevin changed over to a Toyota 22-seater that he says is “a very nice little rocket”.
Family surprised Kevin and Sheryl earlier this month with a dinner in Echuca where they presented a plaque recognising his 40 years ferrying Boort district students.
Daughter Kim said: “My dad was born and bred in the Loddon Shire and he rarely leaves it. He has given his heart and soul to the community over the years and even now, he is always first on the scene if someone around town needs a hand or a job needs doing.”
Kevin left school at 16 to go roustabouting on district farms where he would work for many years.
“When I left school at 16, the principal said I was brain dead - they were the words he used,” Kevin said.
He brought the bus run after its previous owner Jock Wright died.
“I had first been offered it two or three years earlier but we hadn’t finalised anything.”
Kevin eventually moved the bus to the former Lands Department site in Boort where he also set up a workshop doing repairs for district farmers that today doubles as a base for his machinery restoration projects. Among them, a Massey Ferguson tractor that, unlike an earlier bus, Kevin says is no lemon.