By Jill Fennema –

Ruth Fennema has been driving school bus for 30 years, but only 12 of those years were local. Ruth and her husband, Terry, moved here in 2010 from the Chicago area, which is where she learned to be a bus driver, driving for the South Holland Protestant Reformed Christian School.

“My husband actually talked me into driving,” she said. “I’m glad he did because I love it.”

All of the school buses that Ruth has driven have been automatic. She knows how to drive a manual transmission, but said that having one less thing to think about when she is driving is good. The hardest thing to master when she was learning to be a bus driver was gauging what space she needed for making turns.

She would recommend that others consider becoming a bus driver. The process is more complicated now, with the change in federal law earlier this month – a change that will do doubt make it harder for bus companies to hire new drivers. Ruth says that the most important quality for a bus driver to have is to love kids and be able to be firm about the rules.

She finds that using a seating chart really helps keep things going well on her bus. She added that now many students come on the bus with their phones or other devices and that keeps them from being bored or getting too rowdy, at least most of the time.

Her favorite part of being a bus driver is getting to know the kids and listening to some of the things they say. “I should have started a journal of their statements to write a book,” she said.

Driving in the Chicago area had its own unique challenges. One thing she had to deal with there was heavy traffic, expressways, and railroad crossings.

Ruth said that the biggest challenges to being a bus driver here in Minnesota come this time of year. The winter roads make driving stressful.

Her worst memory as a bus driver is getting stuck on a gravel road with her bus. A parent had to come with his tractor-loader and get her out. Thankfully, some of the other parents that had children still waiting to be picked up were able to drive their students to school, so she was only about 20 minutes late getting back to drop students off.

This year, Ruth’s biggest challenges came, not in the drivers seat, but at home, where her husband of nearly 46 years has been battling cancer. Terry has been fighting two types of cancer for the past 14 months or so, as well as dealing with loss of his vision.

All of these health issues have required many trips to Sioux Falls, so Ruth has not been able to drive full-time the past year. She’s really grateful to those people who help fill in for her when she is gone.

Terry’s current prognosis is good, but he will need continued chemotherapy and will still need to be driven to all his appointments because of his vision problems.

Ruth also works at the Chandler Co-op convenience store here in town. She has worked there since 2011. She loves interacting with customers and enjoys her work there.

The couple has five children. Michael, married to Jill, and Adam, married to Beth, live here in Edgerton. Matthew lives in Albertville, Minn., and Jacob lives in Luverne. Their daughter Sara lives in Florida.

In her spare time, which she does not have much of these days, Ruth enjoys camping, baking, sewing, and reading. She plans to drive bus for another year and a half before retiring. “Driving is very rewarding,” Ruth said. “But it is also a big commitment.”