St George, Utah High 75 Low 49

The Utah Highway Patrol awards.

Every March all the school districts in Utah have a conference in St George put on by the Utah Association for Pupil Transportation.  They have seminars and a vendor trade show where the various bus manufacturers show off their newest buses, and one evening there is an awards banquet. At the banquet the State Highway Patrol give awards to the various schools districts for the safety of their buses. We were sitting at a table with people from Emery and Millard counties and they both received a silver award.  The awards are bronze, silver or gold. We were sitting by the Emery superintendent because he is my cousin.

 

Cindy with Murrel.

  There is also a portion of the program where recognition is given to anyone who has retired during the last year. Last night we were invited because Cindy had retired in January. Her old boss asked her to come up and he gave her an award for all her years of service to the State as transportation auditor. Murrel, Cindy’s old boss asked her about the different names the bus drivers called her. The ones that she could repeat were the Red Barron and the Green Hornet. (She drove a red car when she first started auditing the districts and then went to a green car.)  Some students called her the bus police. He also asked for a show of hands of who has been in their position longer than Cindy, and I think only two or three hands went up. She seemed to have a good time meeting with all the friends she had made over the years. She was also given the audit piñata.  This piñata went from district to district for about 10 years as part of a random audit. 

A little view of the crowd.

Cindy's award.

This was called "The Audit  Pinata."

A few years ago, one of the State auditors rode with Cindy to see how she conducted her audits. They were in Moab, with very little traffic, and I guess he was scared out of his wits. After they got back to Salt Lake he reported that her job was too dangerous. He didn't like her driving with a clipboard on her lap, a stopwatch in her hand, one eye on the speedometer, and having to follow the buses so closely. Because of his report, the physical audits were suspended. As I said above this took place in Moab. Cindy and I always wondered how he would have liked to have been where there really was a lot of traffic! She said that she really didn’t follow that close in Moab, and some times in the more populated districts she was at an unsafe distance so she would not get stopped at traffic lights and loose the bus.