My Other Life: Rebekah Summers, School Bus Driver

“If you had told me 20 years ago that I would be a bus driver today and would be loving my job, I would have laughed out loud,” says Rebekah Summers, the owner of Perfect 10 Nails inside Don’s Barber Shop in Cadiz, Ky. Summers began driving a school bus for the Trigg County School Systems in 2002 and her schedule is anything but laid back. She does her morning route on the bus, parks the bus on the school campus, walks a half-mile to work, and opens the salon for business at 8 a.m. By 2:30 she walks back to the bus, does the afternoon route, parks the bus at her house then walks a short way back to the shop to accommodate any late appointments.

“I have driven the same route the whole time, so I have had just about the same group of kids since I started,” she says. “They range from kindergarteners to seniors. Believe it or not, it’s less hectic this way. The older kids usually don’t want anything to do with the younger kids, so everyone stays to themselves.”

The only challenge, says Summers, is new kids or kindergarteners. “They don’t already know the rules of my bus, so I constantly have to repeat myself. I always feel like I’m nagging and no one wants to be remembered as a nagging bus driver.” 

The only other difficulty is saying goodbye to the seniors. “I get attached to the kids, seeing them five days a week, knowing just about every part of their lives. Then they graduate and go off to school,” she says. “Sometimes I still get text messages from them just wondering what I am doing.

“I absolutely love both of my jobs. I have the best bus of kids in the world and the best group of clients in the world.”