This story originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of Town&Gown magazine.
Every morning across Centre County, school bus drivers rise early and head to depots and garages, inspecting their buses before beginning their routes. Not only do these drivers play a critical role in safely and securely transporting local students to and from school, but they also teach the importance of mutual respect and build safe, positive spaces for the students on their buses.
Town&Gown spoke with five school bus drivers, each representing one Centre County school district. Here are their stories.
Alicia Vatalaro
Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District (Fullington Trailways)
Years driving: 11
Favorite part of the job: “The kids!”
Alicia Vatalaro has been driving her route in Philipsburg-Osceola for 11 years. After picking up her bus from the garage at 6:45 a.m., her day begins with a stop in Munson before she works her way back through Philipsburg, picking up middle school and high school students along the route. In the afternoon, she retraces her steps, ending back in Munson before returning her bus for the evening.
“The kids are very fun — very entertaining. Every day is a fun day,” shares Vatalaro. She says that while the most challenging aspect of the job is making sure students on the bus aren’t acting up while she’s driving, she has gotten to know students personally over the years.
“I talk to all the kids. I know their names and we talk about what they’re doing on the weekends,” she says. “It makes it nice when you have a friendship with the kids.”
A hair stylist in Centre County for over 20 years before becoming a stay-at-home mom for her daughter, Vatalaro is someone who likes to work. On her daughter’s first day of kindergarten, she recalls, “At the bus stop, I was asking the school bus driver some questions about her job.” Finding out it was a job she could do as a mom while maintaining a schedule similar to her daughter’s, Vatalaro walked down that same day and applied.
“If you’re a mom, this is the perfect job,” Vatalaro says.
Although her family does not live on her bus route, she has the flexibility to bring her daughter to school at Philipsburg-Osceola some days. Her daughter even met some of her best friends through connections Vatalaro made with students on her route.
“I like having the same route, because then I get to see the kids grow. Some even keep in touch with me when they’re older,” Vatalaro shares, noting that she does not let students “friend” her on Facebook until after they’ve graduated high school.
Vatalaro says that “any good bus driver will say they refer to their kids as ‘my kids.’ And that’s what they are. They’re my kids.”
James Romine
Bald Eagle Area School District (JD Cramer Transportation)
Years driving: 33
Favorite part of the job: Flexibility
According to Bald Eagle Area School District Superintendent Chris Santini, at 345 square miles, Bald Eagle Area is the largest Centre County school district geographically, and drivers there have the most ground to cover.
James Romine, a driver through JD Cramer Transportation, covers the Mountaintop area of the district, around Snow Shoe. When he began driving for Bald Eagle Area, he drove a high school bus, later going on to drive trucks commercially before coming back to the school district to drive for the elementary school.
One of Romine’s favorite parts of the job is the flexibility, including time between his morning and afternoon routes and in the evenings, which he often spends visiting with family, particularly his sons.
A challenge he faced at the start of his bus driving career was managing students who misbehave on the bus. He shares that “as time went on, I realized they’re children. Some of them are only-children or have siblings of a different age, and the only time they might communicate with kids their age is on the school bus. Once you get that out of the way, basically you want to keep things as safe as possible.”
Romine takes care to explain to his students that they have to stay seated, keep their feet and legs out of the aisle, and keep their hands to themselves. He also fosters a culture of mutual respect on his vehicle. “I tell them, ‘If you want to talk to me, say “hey, Mr. Romine.” If you say “hey you” or “bus driver,” I’ll ignore you.’ At the same time, when I talk to an individual student, I make sure to call them by name.
“I treat all children the same … and realize they’re not going to be perfect. I’m not running a boot camp!”
Romine plans to keep driving “as long as God’s willing,” but he definitely plans to drive at least one more year.
“It keeps me going,” he shares. “I don’t know what I’ll do with myself once I don’t do this!”
Heidi Suckar
Bellefonte Area School District (Fullington Trailways)
Years driving: 8
Favorite part of the job: Flexibility and building relationships with students and their families
For Heidi Suckar, a driver for Fullington Trailways who serves Bellefonte Area School District, driving school buses is a family affair. About eight years ago, her husband, Robert, recruited her to join him driving for Fullington. She reluctantly applied, not knowing how much she would come to love driving her school bus. She thinks this is the case for many prospective drivers: “It’s not a high-priority job that people think they might want or like, but it’s a pretty cool job.”
Since applying for and landing the job eight years ago, Heidi Suckar has covered the same route with the same students.
“As long as nobody moves and nothing changes, my kindergarteners will be my seniors,” she says. “I get to see them all the way through.”
The Suckar family’s day begins at 4:30 in the morning when Heidi, Robert, and their three children wake to get ready and head to the bus depot. The two youngest usually go with Robert to the elementary school, while the oldest goes with Heidi to be dropped off at Bellefonte Area High School. Heidi shares that “one of the perks of the job is that we can bring our kids with us to ride on our bus or on one of our other drivers’ buses, depending on what elementary school we’re dropping off at.”
Despite the daily stress of driving buses of students through morning traffic, she feels rewarded every day with the relationships built with students and families. “As a school bus driver, within the educational system I am the first person [students] see. I am the one that sets the tone, so I make sure that every single child that gets on the bus, I say good morning to. At the end of the day, I am the last person in the educational system they see. I make sure that every single child that gets off my bus I say ‘have a good night, see you tomorrow.’ … We start and end their day. School bus drivers are definitely the unsung heroes.”
Heidi Suckar doesn’t plan to leave her position anytime soon. “I’ve made some big promises to the kids who ride my bus that I won’t stop driving until they graduate. I just made that promise to some of my kindergarteners … so I will be driving for a while!”
Robert Henry
Penns Valley Area School District
Years driving: 19
Favorite part of the job: “The kids!”
After Robert Henry retired from his job as a Penn State police officer, his stepdaughter — a speech therapist at State College Area High School — connected him with a Penns Valley Area School District bus driver about a job opening.
“[My stepdaughter] asked me if I wanted to drive. … I retired in June and started driving in September,” he says.
Henry’s day begins when he picks up his bus at the garage in Centre Hall at 6:30 a.m. He first picks up and drops off high schoolers and then picks up students from kindergarten to fourth grade and drops them off at Centre Hall Elementary.
This route isn’t the easiest, especially in tough weather. Henry shares that driving on the back roads can be challenging. “The Penns Cave road is a real narrow road,” he says. “If cars come the other way, you’ve got to get up tight against the guard rails.”
Other than that, he notes, he and the students have a good time on the bus. “We get to see beautiful sunrises and wild animals on the back roads. If I see one, I stop the bus so the kids can see it too.”
Henry works to build meaningful relationships with the students he drives daily. “I tell them good morning every morning, and we joke around and talk to each other,” he says. “Every holiday, I buy them Hershey candy bars. They respect me, and I respect them.”
Tammie Slys
State College Area School District
Years driving: 20
Favorite part of the job: “Everything”
State College Area School District driver Tammie Slys never thought she’d find herself behind the wheel of a school bus. A former Corning employee, she often worked swing shifts and weekends. When the State College factory closed in 2003, she hoped to be able to maintain nine-to-five hours Monday through Friday in her next role. She began working in food service at State College Area School District until a coworker suggested she apply to be a school bus driver.
“I figured I’d give it a try,” says Slys. After training and passing her driver’s test and computer exam, she began driving for Radio Park Elementary School. In addition to driving, she worked as a high school monitor while her three children were in high school.
Recently, Slys transitioned to driving full time. Her work day begins around 6:50 a.m., when she picks up her bus from Radio Park Elementary. Between her morning and afternoon routes, she enjoys the flexibility to run errands and help out family members.
In fact, Slys says she enjoys everything about the job. “I enjoy driving the students. … I like working for [the district]. I like the staff. I like the way the mechanics keep our buses up. I like everything about it. It just works well for me, and I wish I would have done it a lot sooner.”
She does her part to make sure her students enjoy their days, too. “Every day is not a good day, but … I’m going to make sure it’s a good day when [my students] exit that bus.”
The biggest challenge for Slys is driving in bad weather. She says that “most of the time, the district is great about calling off school for bad weather,” but there have been occasions when the weather hits after she’s already begun her route.
Weather aside, Slys says she has never had a job like this one. “I want to wake up and go to work every day,” she says. “And when I miss a day of work, the kids are like ‘Miss Tammie, where were you yesterday?’ I’m telling you — I do nothing special except treat them the way that I would want to be treated.”
Slys plans to continue driving as long as she can. “Right now, I pray to God I can do it another 10 years,” she says. T&G
Jules Slater is a freelance writer in State College.
