Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
For 624 Colfax School kids, the ride to school begins with him.
In a job where a thousand things can get off track, he has kept everything rolling through five years of bi-annual inspections at a 100 percent pass rating.
“It’s pretty impressive,” said Colfax Superintendent Michael Morgan of his Transportation Supervisor, Craig McCully. “The state must think it’s impressive too. He’s doing a good job maintaining the fleet.”
A total of 18 buses and three motor pool vehicles are under McCully’s jurisdiction. That includes three Steptoe buses which were added this year for service and maintenance.
McCully started as an assistant for Randy Perkins for 10 years. Perkins retired five years ago, and McCully took over as supervisor in 2008.
“It keeps you busy,” McCully said.
One of the busiest times is just about to start. Rainouts during the spring sports season and all of the shuffling of buses and drivers that brings complicates the district’s bus service.
There are 13 daily routes which McCully oversees. Each has an assigned driver. The fleet also has nine substitute drivers.
Approximately 157,000 miles a year are put on the buses.
Each year the routes may need to be adjusted, not to mention the budget, which is administered by Supt. Morgan and business manager Reece Jenkin, by direction of the school board.
“If I can fix it, I can fix it,” McCully said. “Without buying parts. Michael and Reece know I’m not gonna spend money we don’t need to.”
McCully’s tasks change with the days, but some are recurring.
“There are a lot of electrical issues on school buses,” he said.
During the winter, magnesium chloride, which the state puts down on roads to melt snow, has an abrasive, corrosive effect, rotting wiring and light sockets.
“You go to replace a bulb, there’s nothing wrong so you start tracing from that spot in the wire and hopefully it’s close,” McCully said with a laugh.
Wiring can run the whole length of a bus and it can sometimes take days to locate a failure in the electrical system.
Sometimes the failure turns out to be a computer.
“And that’s why I could never find it,” McCully said. “Sometimes it’s better to walk away and come back to it, and your brain clicks.”
When it proves to be an issue with the computer he calls in a technician from Rush Truck Center in Lewiston.
In addition to mechanical work, McCully also performs standard maintenance on the fleet.
He changes the oil every 4,000 miles on each vehicle and the tires every two years — sometimes more for buses that run on routes with a lot of gravel.
The state patrol comes to inspect twice per year. In the winter, the visit is a surprise. In the summer, a date is set for August.
The winter inspection for this year came on Feb. 23.
“You gotta make sure your lights, safety buzzers and tires are all set,” said McCully. “They keep you on your toes.”
This year’s visit included a 37-point inspection of 25 percent of the fleet picked at random. The result was another rating of 100 percent.
For McCully, a day begins with making sure the buses work for morning routes and all drivers’ seats are filled.
The district has the reserve which can be claimed quickly when engines don’t turn on winter mornings.
Another part of McCully’s job in the cold season is determining whether school will be delayed or canceled.
If it snows, he’s up at 3:30 a.m. driving routes in his Chevy four-wheel drive pickup to check conditions. He looks for snow depth and drifting.
“It’s pretty peaceful out there that time of night,” said McCully.
He then calls Supt. Morgan between 5 and 5:30 a.m. to tell him what he saw.
On the opposite side of the calendar is a different kind of work.
“A fine tooth comb,” McCully said, of summer detailing. “Not one cut in any seat. ”
Under the bus is key too.
After much time spent on his back with a lanky pressure washer in hand, he had an idea one day.
He welded together a device with a platform and two nozzles, which connects to a hose, which then can be wheeled under a bus. So instead of needing to be under there to spray it clean, McCully can stand alongside the bus and maneuver the sprayer with a handle.
When it comes time to replace a bus, McCully reviews bids from companies such as Thomas, Blue Bird and International. The district has purchased from them all, as models change each year and one company’s model may be preferable than another in a given year.
The district has tried to purchase one new bus a year but the replacement schedule has lost ground with the state’s school funding woes.
A Colfax High graduate of 1977, McCully farmed and ranched with his father above the Snake River until 1996.
He applied for the Colfax District Transportation Supervisor position at the same time Randy Perkins did. Later, he went down and introduced himself to the man who got the job. Soon Perkins hired him as a bus driver and part-time mechanic.
McCully does his work in the bus barn behind the football stands, up against the hill.
“You can’t miss it,” he said. “There’s lots of yellow out there.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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