By Jill Fennema –

This week, February 21-27, is School Bus Driver Appreciation Week in Minnesota. We decided to feature two local bus drivers who have retired. Larry Bleyenburg retired from driving bus at the end of 2020. Fred Huisken retired in 2017.

LARRY BLEYENBURG

Larry Bleyenburg retired from driving school bus as of the first of the year. He drove school bus in the Edgerton area for over 50 years.

Larry started working for Bob Roe-lofs, who owned Roelofs Implement with his father, Jim. They also owned a couple of school buses. Larry started by driving the kindergarten route. He would bring the morning group of kindergartners home at noon and then bring the afternoon group to school after he finished. He also worked as one of three janitors at the school during that time.

After a while, he also started driving students for extracurricular activities like football and basketball games. Ev Nagelhout also owned a couple of the school buses at that time. The Christian school had their own buses at the time as well. In the 1960’s, the Fair Bus Bill was passed, making it necessary for the school district to bus all students within the district, regardless of whether they attended public or private school.

Larry didn’t start driving a full route until 1982, when he started working for Mel and Ann’s Bus Service. He drove the Leota bus route, bringing students from the Leota area to Leota Christian. He did that until 2011, when Leota Christian closed. Leota is in the Edgerton School District, so the law required that they have the option of being bussed to school.

FRED HUISKEN

Fred Huisken was a school bus driver for Edgerton for 20 years.

He began driving bus in 1996 for Mel and Ann Hendriks. He started as a substitute driver, so he learned all the school bus routes. Eventually he became a full time bus driver, running both a morning and an afternoon route. That worked well because his wife, Betty, was able to take care of the grocery store they owned during those hours.

Fred’s day would always begin with breakfast in the “booth” in the back of Huisken Market. He would meet Larry Bleyenburg and Jim Huisken, who were both bus drivers there, and they would cook bacon, eggs, and toast together each weekday morning. The coffee pot was on and the conversation and camaraderie drew them there each day.

Fred’s main route was the Chandler/Lake Wilson bus route. He went to Chandler via the Valley Road, then over to Lake Wilson and back to Edgerton via Murray County 5, with several back roads and gravel roads in between. He recalls that he had at least one family where he drove two generations of students – he was Jody (Schmidt) Schaap’s bus driver when she was a child and then drove her children as well.