After half a century on the job, a well-known local school bus driver is gearing down for retirement.
Charlie Amy had an interesting resumé of work experience before he landed his five-decade job behind the wheel. Prior to his driving career, Amy quit school in 1964 and worked at Teulon Hosiery Mill, where a friend introduced him to his future wife Margery Slater — and they’ve now been married for 55 years.
From there, Amy worked at Bell Bottling in Winnipeg followed by a six-year stint at Pepsi Cola. After that, he left Pepsi to take over his family’s farm.
“In the spring of 1974, I went to work for Paul’s Hauling, hauling oil to portable sites to make asphalt until the fall of 1974 when I started driving the school bus — which was a better fit with the farm like many others at that time,” Amy said.
“At the time, Interlake School Division had no spare drivers, so mechanics had to pull runs. It was a wet day so I was home. The telephone rang and it was Glen Durant. He was the transportation supervisor at the time.”
Durant said he was in in desperate need for a driver to go to Selkirk to pick up students. He told Amy to pick up a bus from the bus garage, where another employee would give him a crash course on how to operate it.
“I drove to Selkirk and the first student on the bus was my sister,” he recalled.
She wondered what on earth her brother was doing driving her bus.
“I told to her sit down and be quiet if she wanted to get home! This was my first bus trip,” Amy said.
“Glen phoned me several times more in September to see if I could drive. In October, a driver quit and nobody applied. Glen asked me if I would take it on. I said I would do it for two weeks until he found somebody. He never did, so two weeks turned into 50 years.”
Over the decades, Amy has provided transportation for the second and third generation of some local families.
“Around 1990 I wanted to drive a tour bus but needed Grade 12 to drive a highway bus, so I took my Grade 12 by GED but was still unsuccessful in getting a tour bus job,” he said.
“In 2000, the documentary Pioneer Quest was filmed on my property and I was hired on part time with the film crew. I was still itching to see the country and get paid, so I started working for Teams as a spare who always had work for me when school was out.”
As a result, Amy has seen almost every state in the U.S.
“After two years, my wife would sometimes come along for the ride,” he said. “When the pandemic hit in 2020, work dried up.”
In 2012, Amy started to job-share for a three-month period so he could become a snowbird.
“I was a 4-H leader for 35 years, which complemented my dealing with kids on the bus. My bucket list includes visiting the Maritimes, Alaska and Northwest Territories,” he said.
“Between belonging to seven volunteer groups, building a log cabin at Settlers, Rails and Trails and being a snowbird in Welton, Ariz., I plan to keep myself busy in retirement.”
