LEBANON — The Townsend family is perhaps best known for having farmed up on Storrs Hill since 1769. But, in the last half-century or so its members have built another legacy; “driving bus” for the Lebanon School District.
Nine members of the extended Townsend family have had stints as bus drivers in Lebanon over the years, with some driving for as long as 40 years.
“Basically, if you’re in my family and you don’t drive a school bus, then what are you doing with your life, apparently,” the youngest driver, Sarah Murchie, 38, joked earlier this month.
Starting with Bob Townsend in the mid-1960s, this extended family has fulfilled a key role in Lebanon, and along the route has had a hand in creating community. With only one family member still plying Lebanon’s roads, it’s a legacy that might be nearing its end.
Bob Townsend drove his daily route for 40 years. His starting rate was a dollar an hour and by 2005 he was making just over $15 plus a benefits stipend, he told the Valley News at the time.
Bob’s wife, Carolyn, followed him into the job, as did his brother, Eric; son, Mike, and daughter-in-law, Joan.
Bob encouraged his cousin, Bruce Townsend, who’s Murchie’s grandfather, to follow in his footsteps in the late 1960s.
“I went down and signed right up and took the test,” Bruce Townsend said last month.
At the time, and today, a bus driver certification requires a written exam and a practical driving test in addition to a commercial drivers license.
Bruce Townsend’s daughter and son-in-law, Heidi and Dennis Bundy — Murchie’s parents — also have driven school buses. Dennis Bundy is the last member of the family still on the job.
The Bundys also run Tomapo Farm on Storrs Hill. Tomapo, a former dairy operation turned to diversified forestry, sits down the road from Tadmore Dairy Farm, which Bob’s family operated until 2003 when they “went out of farming,” Joan Townsend said.
Driving a bus route fit neatly into a dairy farm’s rhythm. Drivers could get up early in the morning, milk and feed the cows and pick up the morning bus run. After dropping all the kids off at school the drivers would head home, do the field work and get ready for the afternoon route that finished just in time for evening farm work.
The extra income helped when cash flow at the farm was “tighter than the bark on an old beech tree,” Bruce Townsend said. It helped the community and it was fun, he said.
“I grew up understanding that we were to serve our fellow man and help our neighbors,” Bruce said. “Driving school bus was a way I contributed to that.”
The family also broke a gender barrier. In 1971, Carolyn Townsend became the school district’s first female driver; her career lasted 30 years.
The family’s bus driving legacy now spans six decades. Eric Townsend drove for a few years in the 1970s, Heidi and Dennis Bundy and Michael Townsend came on in the 1980s and Joan Townsend started in the 1990s. In 2023, Murchie started with the district.
Along with the schedule, bus driving worked in the family’s favor because many of them already had commercial licenses and were used to driving large vehicles for farm work.
“I got really good at driving the bus only because they had me backing up to hay wagons and corn wagons during farming season,” Joan Townsend said.
Carolyn Townsend was used to driving a big truck her husband had bought to haul grain and had practice navigating deliveries to Morrisville, Vt.
Women’s work
For the women in the family, driving the school bus was also a good job to have while raising children.
When their children were small, the drivers could take them on the road and after the morning route wrapped up around 8 or 9 a.m. they had the middle of the day to care for their families. At the end of the day, they’d pack the kids up again for the afternoon route and be home in the early evening.
“It’s a nice way to make sure and be around for the kids,” Joan Townsend said.
Murchie, who drove for the district from 2023 until early November when she moved to Maine, would regularly take one or both of her young kids on the route with her.
She first got her commercial license to drive a bus on church field trips in 2008. Driving a school bus was “honestly something I never really wanted to do,” Murchie said. But “I needed a job and with little kids it worked really well.”
With a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old, being able to bring the kids on the bus was a big help because child care is “not a thing that’s easily available these days.”
Her days typically started around 5 a.m. with breakfast and a required pre-trip inspection of her bus.
“We all have been fortunate to be able to park our buses at the house because we have the space and we all live on our route,” Murchie said.
Before every run, drivers do a full safety inspection, checking everything from fluid levels to belts, lug nuts, tires and all of the lights and signals. If there is a safety issue, drivers will fix it right away. If they can’t fix it, they’ll need to use another bus for the day.
The route started with middle and high school students. She picked up students on Meriden Road, School Street and Bank Street, dropped them off at the middle school and high school, and circled around again for the Hanover Street School students. The whole trip took about two hours to cover 25 miles or so of driving. On a typical day, Murchie was back up on Storrs Hill around 8:15 a.m.
Her afternoon routes started around 2 p.m. and ended at 4 p.m.
“It’s hard. It’s a different schedule; a different world,” Murchie said.
Safety first
Whether in the 1960s or 2025, managing up to 72 children while navigating the hills of Lebanon, staying on schedule and keeping everyone safe is no easy feat.
Bruce Townsend decided to stop bus driving in 1989. He said much had changed over his 20 years on the job. The disciplinary rules were different, kids were not as well behaved and the schedule no longer worked with Tomapo Farm’s forestry operation.
Back in the day, drivers could leave rule-breaking students at school and have them find another way home. By the end of Bruce’s tenure, the driver’s only disciplinary power was to contact the district.
That added difficulty made the job “no longer fun,” he said.
On one of Bruce Townsend’s last days of driving, he covered a route he was “well familiar with.” An 11-year-old boy was waiting for the bus under the eaves of the Baited Hook restaurant on Route 4. When he saw the bus approaching, the boy ran out into the road in front of a car.
Though he survived the crash, it seemed like a miracle to Bruce, who said the child flew into the air in front of a busload of students. The boy was in a coma for more than three weeks and spent the summer in rehab for leg and head injuries, the Valley News reported at the time.
“That was my last experience. I had given my notice to say I wasn’t driving bus after that spring,” Bruce said.
Now he says he “should’ve quit a year sooner.”
Such incidents are rare. Most days, students are well behaved and keeping them safe and in line is a simple task. Creating clear rules and expectations for students is key, drivers said.
“You just kind of have to set the standard early on in the game, set the boundaries and don’t waiver from it, especially when you’re getting to know them because give them a tiny little bit and they’ll take it as far as they can,” Murchie said.
Carolyn narrowly avoided a tragedy by establishing a system on her bus where students waited for a hand signal from her before crossing the road.
One day, while making a drop-off at the top of Seminary Hill, Carolyn had a group of students waiting patiently for the signal when a police cruiser came blasting by.
“Kids were always respectful when you respect them and when you give the right kids the power,” Carolyn said. She recalled one sixth-grade girl who was especially good at helping her to manage the chaos going on in the back of the bus, calling her “the street boss.”
Winter weather is another complicating factor, especially with a bus route that starts and ends at 1,200 feet of elevation atop Storrs Hill. The view is picturesque, but the road can be treacherous.
“If I could get off the hill I could usually go most places,” Murchie said. The roads in downtown Lebanon are usually well plowed and the school district would communicate with the Public Works Department to ensure Storrs Hill was cleared off early in the morning.
During her first year, Murchie drove a route that took her up Hardy Hill on the outskirts of town where “it’s like a whole different world.”
One winter day, the district sent the students home early on account of the weather.
“By the time I got towards the end of my route I couldn’t get up the rest of Hardy Hill safely,” Murchie said. She pulled off the road to a safe location and had parents come to pick up the remaining kids there.
“No parents complained,” Murchie said. Most thanked her for keeping the students safe.
Now hiring
The school district is “super fortunate” to have a dedicated line of “great bus drivers” like the Townsend/Bundy/Murchie family, Superintendent Amy Allen said in a recent interview.
Consistent drivers know their routes well, which helps with safety and efficiency. They are also the first face a student sees in the morning, which can set a tone for the day, Allen said.
Dennis Bundy has driven Julie Follensbee’s daughters, now 12 and 14, to school since kindergarten. Having the same driver, especially one who is so familiar with the hills of Lebanon, makes the Follensbee family, who live on Cross Road, feel safe.
Bundy has many admirable attributes as a bus driver; he runs a tight ship, rarely misses a day, is prompt down to the minute but not afraid to wait for anyone who’s fallen behind, and “takes a lot of care” in the maintenance of his bus, Follensbee said.
“He knows the kids well because he’s been on the route for so many years and I think he really takes a lot of pride in the work that he does to drive the route and look out for the kids,” Follensbee said.
But drivers are hard to come by, in Lebanon and everywhere. With Murchie’s departure in November, the school district is down “at least four” bus drivers and had to consolidate some routes to make sure everyone gets picked up and dropped off on time.
Typically, the district needs 10 buses for regular routes, another four for special needs students and four for field trips and athletics, according to the SAU 88 website.
The district is recruiting bus drivers at an advertised rate of about $27 an hour and “turning internally” to encourage current staff to get their commercial drivers licenses and school bus driver certifications.
For Murchie, having a commercial drivers’ license and a school bus driver certification is a constant form of job insurance. She plans to transfer her license from New Hampshire to Maine as soon as she can.
Over the years, she acquired the initial license, a special passenger endorsement and a school bus endorsement, each of which requires separate knowledge and skills tests.
“I kept that license up because I worked so hard to get it and I also knew that it was basically a guaranteed job if I ever needed one,” Murchie said.
Community bonds
In addition to providing a reliable source of income, the job also granted drivers some opportunities for fun and relationship building.
“If you only had a few kids you could go get ice cream,” Carolyn said. Joan used to play music for the students and said her husband would let the kids have a water gun fight on the last day of school.
Carolyn developed special relationships with her students. For example, one young boy with an absent mother turned to the bus driver for support.
“You’re more than just a bus driver; sometimes you’re a school psychologist and a nurse,” Carolyn said.
Heidi Bundy, too, said being a school bus driver in Lebanon creates a bond with the community.
When her husband had a heart attack she recalled receiving text messages offering well wishes from “women I did not know.”
When Dennis Bundy came to, after greeting him and expressing her joy that he was OK she informed him in short order that he had “some explaining to do.”
The texts were all from families along Dennis’ bus route.
“Lebanon really is a real community,” Heidi said.