Posted: 6/27/06
Chiglo retires after 30 years on bus route
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
Phyllis Chiglo, 72, drove her school bus to the moon and then some.
Do the math: 170 days a year, 70 miles a day, for 30 years. Thatís about 357,000 miles, a good 100,000 miles more than the distance to the moon.
Chiglo retired this spring after 30 years as a school bus driver in ISD #299 for Schmitz Bus Line.
Ice storms, boulders in the road, Chinese fire drills, Chiglo has seen them all and then some.
It all started in the Winnebago Valley, Chigloís first route back in 1976. She drove it for 12 years, and remembers it affectionately.
She would use a station wagon for the first leg to pick up the kids at the southeastern edge of the district.
John Schmitz, who owned the bus line, kept a bus at the Jim and Iyla Hammell farm. Jim would start the bus for Chiglo in the winter, and would welcome the early passengers into his house to warm up a bit if need be before they transferred to the bus.
One day an ice storm pulled a barbed wire across the road. George Hammell came with his tractor and helped her get turned around so she could keep going past the Smerud farm to pick up the Kubitz and Baxter families.
Another day a car on the wrong side of the road put her in the ditch. ìI took the ditch instead of hitting him head on,î Chiglo recalled. Schmitz had to come out and pull her out. When she got to school an hour late, she apologized to her students. ìWell, that was fun, do it again!î one student replied.
One day a boulder from the bluff lay in the middle of the road. ìThat thing could have come down and hit the bus,î Chiglo said.
There was the time students jumped out the back door and ran around the bus in a Chinese fire drill. She met with the ringleaderís father the next morning. ìHis dad gave him what he deserved,î Chiglo said with a smile. And she did too: a week of sitting in the front seat. That was the hardest punishment she administered short of kicking someone off.
Chiglo only did that once. She had moved a student to the front of the bus and he drew a picture of him pointing a gun at her. She ìwrote upî the student and met with the boy and his mother, because she thought it was a serious matter. About a week later she received a Care Bear pin from the mother.
ìI know the kids sometimes thought I was strict,î Chiglo said.
She doesnít speak badly about the unruly students. She referred to them as ìrascalsî several times during our interview.
ìSome were just more active than others,î is how she puts it. In other words, there was no doubt who was in charge on Phyllis Chigloís bus.
She had a few rules, such as no changing from seat to seat and no pop in the bus. she also would not let kids in grades 1-6 sit past the fifth seat. That was because of the bad language that older kids sometimes used. ìThey donít have to hear that stuff, that was my feeling,î Chiglo said.
School bus justice
Her forms of justice made sense. One student who brought red paint onto the bus had to scrub off some seats before she got to go into the school.
She escorted another student into the office after getting a call that he started a petition to have her fired. Principal Ed Ferkingstad dropped the petition into the waste basket without looking at it and told the student, ìNow get to class.î
Once there was an ice storm during the day. Schmitz called the school and cancelled the bus rides home. Students were farmed out to the community. ìI had four children here,î Chiglo said.
Ice was her biggest safety concern. Snow didnít bother Chiglo much. ìA lot of times I had to plow through some deep snow to get down to the valley,î she said.
She never had an accident, except for when she backed into a fire hydrant at the fair grounds. ìI think I did the city a favor,î she said with a smile. ìI got them a new fire hydrant.î
Chiglo also drove a Brownsville route, and one along County Road 3 down Crazy Corners, Gavin Road, and to places like the Klinski and Stemper families.
Kids did and said some funny things. ìYou know, youíre really old,î one tyke told her.
Why is that, Chiglo asked. ìYouíre hair is pure white,î he answered.
Another time, fourth grader Simon Augedahl gave Chiglo a present that he had made for his mother. ìI gave it back to Cindy,î Chiglo said.
ìAnd I still have it,î Cindy said that Christmas card holder from seven years ago.
ìShe was a fantastic driver,î Cindy said of Chiglo. ìMy kids will miss her tremendously. She was like a mom on the bus.î
Cell phones made a big improvement with bus driving, Chiglo said. Parents could call her if they didnít need her to stop, and she could call the school. ìI donít know what we did without them before,î she said.
Buses improved too. She started with a standard transmission, then got an automatic.
Phyllis and her husband, Nestor, have five children: Pam (Schieber), Kari (Neumann), and Jay, Jan, and John Chiglo. They have nine grand children.
Chiglo said her family thought it was time for her to retire. ìIt was a tough decision because I still have a year and a half on my license,î she said.
John Schmitz said that Chiglo was a good employee, always on time and well organized. ìThe big thing with a bus driver is they want to do it,î Schmitz said. ìThatís why itís hard to find a driver, because theyíre scared of doing it.î
That definitely wasnít the case with Phyllis Chiglo.
Chiglo felt Schmitz was a good employer. ìHe always had concern for his drivers and always kept his buses in good shape,î she said.
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