School bus driver will be laid to rest in custom yellow casket designed to look like the same vehicle he safely transported children in for 55 years
- Glen Davis, 85, who drove a school bus for 55 years had a casket built and painted to resemble the iconic vehicle
- Davis started driving in 1949, the year of his high school graduation
- He drove continuously until his 2005 retirement and ended up taking the kids and grandchildren of his own classmates to school
The wheels on his bus go underground.
A long-time school bus driver from Minnesota has been buried in a specially designed casket.
Glen Davis worked for the Grand Meadow School District, near Rochester, Minnesota for 55 years and was known by generations of pupils simply as ‘Glennie’.
Such was his love of driving the school bus each and every day, he wanted to be memorialized by the job that brought him so much joy.
A fitting final resting place for beloved Minnesota school bus driver Glen Davis, 85, who drove a school bus for 55 years. He had a casket built and painted to resemble a school bus, and posed with it before he died
Glen Davis started driving in 1949, the year of his high school graduation. He drove continuously for the next 55 years until his 2005 retirement
Davis gave strict instructions that after he died he was to be laid to rest in a coffin painted exactly like a Grand Meadow district school bus.
Davis passed away on Saturday aged 88 and will now board his own ‘bus’ to take him straight to heaven.
He began his driving career in 1949, the same year he graduated high school.
He was truly a driver for the ages.
The first set of students he drove were his own classmates and friends but eventually the passengers turned into the children of his classmates and then their grandchildren.
The casket was a gift from the Hindt funeral home who painted it the same color as the school buses Davis drove along some flair including a stop sign and the number 3 – his first bus
The idea for the bus coffin came from a conversation Davis (pictured) had with one of his sons-in-law
By the time he retired, Davis had driven 800,000 miles and gone through five buses.
After the school round was done, Davis would head backto his other job as a farmer and would begin milking cows.
‘He just enjoyed the kids and driving the bus so much,’ said his daughter, Lisa Hodge to the Brainerd Dispatch.
Davis believed a bus casket would be the perfect expression of his personality and showcase his love of his lifelong profession.
The idea came from a conversation he had with one of his sons-in-law, Steve Durst, said Steve’s wife, Dawn.
Durst owned a graphic design business and had already seen a ‘school bus casket’ in a magazine.
A family friend, Jim Hindt, who owned a funeral home decorated one of his coffins by painting it himself in the orange color of a school bus.
He added some flair including a stop sign and the number 3 painted on the side – the number of the bus Davis first drove.
Upon presenting the coffin to Davis in 2015, he was overwhelmed.
‘He really got a kick out of it,’ Hodge said. ‘It’s what he loved about life.’
‘My dad said that all it was missing is an emergency exit door!’ she told the paper.
Davis’ funeral is set for 10:30am on Friday at St. Finbarr Catholic Church in Grand Meadow.
Although it will be a sad occasion, Hodge believes the mood will be lightened by the sight of the school bus casket in which Davis will take his final ride.