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30 YEARS AGO

DECEMBER 10, 1992

OVER THE YEARS THE HEATERS TRANSPORTED LOTS OF KIDS

Continued from last week…

The last 15 years, Doris did her share of driving. “I wasn’t so happy when Rich talked me into driving,” she says. “I was scared the day I made my first run.”

Her first pick-up, she remembers as if it were yesterday. The child was off to school for the first time. The youngster was crying. The child didn’t want to go to school. His mother was crying. She didn’t want the child to go to school either.

Although most of the bus runs were likely routine, it is the eight hours that should have taken two hours; thundering through raging waters in 1966 when construction was in progress on the Thompson River Road; sliding into snow drifts along the river; and dodging deer and elk, sometimes without success, the Heaters remember.

On one occasion, Rich says he was returning from Ronan after a basketball game. “The bus drove a bit oddly. Finally, I stopped to take a look at the bus, to see what was wrong. I got out of the bus and darn near fell down on the ice.”

The drama wasn’t over. A short while later, Rich was flagged down. A Troy school bus had gone through the guardrail and was balanced between the road and railroad track by one of the posts jammed into the bus's tire carrier.

The highway patrol wouldn’t let Rich continue until the road was sanded. During the long wait, he cycled his charges and the Troy students through his bus to give them all some warmth.

Doris recalls a similar occasion when she was ferrying the volleyball team to Eureka.

“It started as a glorious day. At 11 p.m., it started to snow.” It was 5 a.m. the following morning before Doris and the volleyball players got home.

“The best thing we did was to install radios,” Doris said. Being able to call back to the sheriff’s office and pass on to the parents that the trip might be slow, but that all was well, helped a lot.

“One of the first things I learned when Rich was teaching me to drive the bus, was never duck,” Doris says.

“Never ducking,” probably saved her from a serious accident when deer or elk darted in front of her. Around the Falls it’s been said there are two kinds of drivers: one who has hit a deer and one who will hit a deer.

Doris once followed Rich home from Eureka during a blizzard. He was driving the bus; she was carrying cheerleaders in the car.

“It was so bad the only way I could keep on the road was to follow Rich. Rich didn’t say how he knew where the road was.” After Doris arrived in Thompson Falls, a deer ran into her car.

The Heaters added to their route contracts over the years as other contractors retired and routes such as the Cherry Creek and Prospect Creek were established.

In 1980 the school buses became the sole source of income for the Heaters. “With 21% interest rates, we just couldn’t afford the Ford dealership. I closed it,” he noted.

What remained of the business was ideally suited for running the bus line. “We had the tools and the workspace,” Rich said.

This summer the Heaters sold out to the John Mosher family. “I don’t miss the bad roads,” Doris says. “But I do miss the children.”

After 39 years of operating Thompson Falls School buses, Rich awoke one morning to his spouse, “I’ve got nothing to do now and all the time to do it.”

“Honey,” she replied, “I can take care of that.”

All the Heater family honey-dos are finally being caught up.