by Carrie and Garrick Moritz
It’s not a magic school bus, but it is a pretty cool modern marvel. Last Friday, Sept. 29th, the Garretson School District received a delivery of three new, fully electric-powered and operated school buses as part of the Federal Clean School Bus Program, funded by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Garretson School Board approved the purchase last winter after researching their feasibility in cold South Dakota climates and receiving a bid from LION Electric, an e-bus maker that operates a fleet in Vancouver, Canada.
Not only was the Gazette staff on hand, but local news outlets including KELO and Dakota News Now sent reporters and cameras to the event.
The TV folks interviewed both Superintendent Guy Johnson and School Board President Shannon Nordstrom, but also talked to bus drivers Tim Nelson and Tom Godbey.
“The potential savings for the district just for fuel costs is simply worth trying,” said Supt. Johnson.
“Everybody knows what I do for a living,” said Nordstrom, who owns Nordstrom Automotive. “I was skeptical, I admit it. But the more I learned the more I saw that this was an opportunity that we simply couldn’t ignore and I’m eager to see what these buses can do and what they can do for our kids.”
It was school Business Manager Jacob Schweitzer who first brought this idea to the school board.
“It’s my job to look for things that benefit the district financially, and these grants were available for any school district to apply for as long as they filled out the paperwork,” he said. “So, I put together a proposal for the board, and well, they seemed to like the idea of getting brand new buses at no cost to the district. Been about a yearlong process, but it is really nice to see it come to fruition.”
Though board president Nordstrom was perhaps a bit of a doubting Thomas, he and Russ Evans on their weekly radio show “Under the Hood” have been talking about electric vehicles for some time both on air and in their syndicated weekly letters column.
“There’s some real torque there,” he said, talking about the bus. “Tesla changed the market in real way and now all the big companies are putting more and more E-vehicles on the road, many of them with great performance specs. It’s not perfect, storing power is always the constant problem, but they’re getting better.”
The district opted not to order the buses until an auxiliary 25-gallon diesel heater option was available, which will help ensure the batteries do not freeze or get overly cold during the winter. This will help range, which is currently rated at approximately 125 miles. Supt. Johnson pointed out the school's longest regular route is only 45 miles.
Unloading the buses was truly a community effort. While the cameras were rolling, there was an issue of getting two of the buses safely rolled off the flatbed trailers and onto the road. Judd Sopoci of Garbage N More appeared on the scene and provided portable ramps to get one bus unloaded. The second bus, which was on a higher trailer, was unloaded across the highway thanks to Kibble Equipment.
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