End of the road

When the Creston junior varsity softball team returns from a trip to Guthrie Center next Friday, it will be the end of an era in the Creston Community School District.

Like he’s been doing for 27 years, Darwin West will share conversations with kids departing the bus and drive over to the bus barn. There, he will sweep it out, and power wash the windshield so it’s ready for the next driver. And then, he will clock out for the final time.

Two generations of “ol’ yardbirds” have ridden the bus with Darwin. They’ve been teased, congratulated after a big win and consoled after a tough loss. And, they always got home safely, and quickly.

“I’ll plead the fifth on that one. I’m not telling any stories,” longtime softball coach Mike McCabe said, when asked if West sometimes pushed the speed limit on game night trips.

Besides having a regular morning and afternoon bus route north of Creston, West has been one of the primary activity bus drivers for nearly three decades.

He drove the 1997 state basketball championship team into town at the head of a long caravan that was greeted by cars along Cherry Street honking their horns and flashing their lights.

He drove the football team home from Grimes on the night of a one-point overtime victory over Dallas Center-Grimes that sent the Panthers to the semifinals in the UNI-Dome for the first time.

West has driven state champion wrestling teams around southwest Iowa, including one trip to Perry that he and the coaches will never forget.

“The snow was so bad, it was the worst trip we ever had,” said former wrestling coach Darrell Frain, now athletic director and head football coach at Riverside High School in Oakland. “There’s no way we should have been out on the road. It was a total whiteout. But Darwin got us there. Craig Taylor was driving the short bus with Tanner (Webb) on it, and he said he could barely see our taillights to know where to drive. Darwin always had little stories about places we passed on the route, too. He enjoyed talking with the kids.”

“They were calling for a little snow that night,” West recalled, “but when we got just south of Stuart it really hit us hard. It snowed hard from there to Perry. I was just glad to get up there.”

On a winter band contest trip to Nebraska one year, he said the rumble strips on either side of the lane were the only means of knowing where the driving lane was when a sudden snowstorm hit. But, as usual, the group got home safely.

McCabe remembers some of those trips from his years as varsity girls basketball coach.

“You didn’t worry about those (weather) things,” McCabe said. “You always felt good in those situations that he could handle it.”

Speeding ticket

At the ceremony honoring school retirees on June 5, a story was told about the only time West’s reputation for getting home quickly caught up to him.

It was a Thursday night volleyball trip to Lewis Central. The night before he had driven the football team to a playoff game in Sioux City.

“Since he started telling stories at the retirement deal, I told the story about the time he was coming back on Highway 34 and passed three cars that had pulled over to the slow lane,” said Bob Beatty, the district’s transportation director. “Well, he passed all three cars and the only problem was, the lead car was a state trooper!”

Nothing is a secret in the era of cellphone videos and postings on Twitter or Facebook, so by the next morning Beatty had received word from administrators who were aware of the traffic stop.

“He asked how I knew about it,” Beatty said. “I told him, ‘While you were getting your ticket, it was going all over social media!’”

But, not every trip was so swift. One time, football coach Dick Bergstrom was getting nervous about getting to Denison on time. The bus was chugging along well under 50 mph, and there was nothing West could do about it.

“They’d put some kind of diesel additive in and the fuel line got plugged,” West said. “Finally about 10 miles south of Denison we stopped and let the team get on a bus they sent down from Denison. I probably wasn’t going more than 10 miles an hour when I finally drove it into town. The guys at the (Denison-Schleswig) bus barn helped get it straightened out and we made it home fine. But Bergy was getting pretty anxious there for awhile. A bus went zooming past us on the trip and I told Bergy, ‘Right there is the only bus that’s ever passed me.’ Bergy had to just sit back and laugh when I told him that. He said, ‘You know what, you’re probably right!’”

West’s final varsity baseball and softball trips are Tuesday at Red Oak and Thursday at Atlantic. Baseball coach Steve Birchard has been with the district for all but one year of West’s full-time driving career that began in 1991. He’s been involved with the football and track teams in addition to baseball, so the memories have accumulated.

Teasing banter

“The kids always like it when Darwin is driving,” Birchard said. “He liked to be around them. He’d tease them and stuff. This year we had a detour on the way to Carroll and went through Audubon. Darwin got on the (PA) mic and asked one of the guys if he wanted to stop and take a picture by Albert the Bull there in the park along the highway. He’s just had a great demeanor with the kids.”

Many times the kids will get to singing, particularly on the way home. West can’t resist needling them a little if they sound a little off key.

“I might holler back and ask them what they did with the money,” West said. “They’ll ask, what money? I say the money their mom gave them for singing lessons! They must have bought some bubblegum or something. Boy, that gets them wound up!”

When bus driver Bob Cooper finally persuaded West to serve as a substitute bus driver in 1986, West never imagined he’d still be driving full time at age 75. The son of a Red Oak trucker who also worked for BN Transport in Creston for a time found out he enjoyed being around kids as much as he liked driving down the highway. He learned how to park his dad’s semi and 28-foot trailer as a young boy, so taking the wheel of an 84-passenger bus wasn’t intimidating in the least.

“He has that 84-passenger bus full at three to a seat when he goes from the school out here to the ECC building in the afternoons,” Beatty said. “To drive a bus, watch your traffic and maintain control on the bus is a huge job. He’s a good driver and he enjoys the kids.”

Battling some respiratory health problems and trying to pass Iowa DOT physicals became more of a challenge in recent years. He and wife June, retired from a long career at MATURA, decided this was a good time. There will be more time to see their five grandchildren ranging from 7 months old to age 23.

“I had mixed feelings about retiring,” West said. “I had a hard time that last day of school with some of the kids on the route, saying goodbye. I’ll miss 98 percent of them. There are always those couple of kids getting in trouble or putting things on the floor, or making a lot of noise. There’s always those few in a bushel basket of apples that are a little spoiled, and the rest of them are good.”

Auctioneer

West Auction Service remains an active business since West performed his first auction in this area at the 1980 Union County Fair. He’s been a partner of the late Buck Buxton and Tom Frey over the years, but now operates independently. He’s grooming young auctioneers Adam Ross and Justin Geidel, especially with the household sales market.

“I was 37 years old when I did my first auction and I love it, but I can’t do them forever,” West said. “I enjoy getting these new guys started.”

West also volunteers for numerous community benefit auctions, whether it’s for a school program, a Southwestern Community College event or St. Malachy School’s annual auction dinner.

“You see him all around the community doing things,” said retired teacher and coach Mike Gerleman, head coach of the 1997 state basketball champions.

“The kids will miss him a ton,” said Brian Morrison, who succeeded Bergstrom as head football coach. “He’s been like a father figure to them. They knew that he wasn’t just sitting in the bus. He came out and watched the games. They knew he cared about them and wanted them to succeed.”

Those last trips next week will be bittersweet, West said. But, he said he won’t miss the 5 a.m. wakeup calls in the winter, especially when the weather is treacherous. After two long baseball games, he got back to Creston from Denison last week at 1 a.m., got home from checking in the bus at 2:30 a.m. and was up again at 7 a.m. for breakfast with some other drivers at a local restaurant.

At age 75, he admits the grind can wear on him. He and other bus drivers who have retired in recent years will gather to be honored from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Creston Eagles Club.

After 27 years of getting kids home safely through rain and snow and roads sometimes shrouded in fog, or full of deer on the run, it only seems fair that West prefers to just watch the home games for awhile.

“Everybody has assured me that I’ll be OK,” West said. “It’s been a part of my life for all of these years. They tell me when one door closes, another one opens. I’ll still have my sales and things. I’ll still go out and watch some of the ballgames. I just won’t go out of town so much on my own nickel!”