A great ride

     John “Hoppy” Wright wasn’t aware anything special was going on. At first.

     On May 29, he was making his annual end-of-the-school-year trip to the Cone Shoppe with a busload of elementary school students. He had just finished giving them instructions, before they went in, on how they were supposed to behave.

     Then, more people came out from behind the Cone Shoppe building.

     “I saw the people come around the corner, and thought, ‘Oh-oh. Something’s up.’ ” Wright said.

     What was “up” was a celebration that involved students and parents, thanking Hoppy for his 44 years of service driving a regular bus route for Monticello Community School District kids.

     “I was in shock,” Wright said. “I don’t know why they did that. I didn’t expect anything like that. It’s awful nice.”

     Wright, who will be 84 in July, recently announced he was retiring from a regular route.

     “It’s just my age,” Wright explained, “that’s the only reason I quit. Health-wise, I feel good and everything. It’s just – you never know.”

     Judy Hayen, the MCSD board secretary and one of Hoppy’s “route moms,” said the event she and other parents organized was fitting.

     “We wanted to do something for Hoppy,” Hayen said. “He has given so much to this district over the years – working at track meets, football games, volunteering for countless hours, and enjoys the kids so much.

     “He is pretty special to his route families as well, always making sure our kids were taken care of. He even attended some of their events on the weekends.”

     Wright will still do occasional shuttle work, fill in as a substitute on bus routes, and make some of the shorter trips for the Panther athletic teams.

     Wright will also continue mowing school district property, along with side jobs.

     “Little things; like this morning we cleaned up the football field,” Wright said during a June 1 interview.

     “When the mowing slows down, there will be times when there probably won’t be a whole lot to do, but I’m there in case they need me. That’s the main thing.”

     Wright said he will miss the children – adding that they haven’t changed much in the decades he’s spent driving them around. Students would often board the bus with treats – anything from cinnamon rolls to pies, cookies and soft drinks – for Hoppy. He said he’ll miss that too.

     He said he will miss the parents, calling them “wonderful, wonderful people.” And, he’ll miss the teachers at Shannon Elementary, which was a daily stop.

     “I’d see them about every morning,” he said.

     But there’s more.

     “Every morning you can watch the corn grow, watch the beans grow all through the countryside,” Wright said. “And then in the fall, you can watch the farmers take the crops back out. It’s very interesting, and you just notice that every time you go out on that route. That was something that I really enjoyed.”

     There are also things he won’t miss.

     “It’ll be nice, not to have to get up in the morning when it’s 20-below or 15-below, and go on my bus route,” he said.

     Wright has had a number of jobs over the years – working at Balster Implement in Scotch Grove, as a Jones County Deputy Sheriff, working on a family farm, and operating the Phillips 66 station on Main Street (now Power Fuels).

     He also had a full athletic career. He got the nickname “Hoppy” when he suffered a leg injury in high school football, about the time a college football player called Hopalong Cassady was making a name for himself at Ohio State. A teammate of Wright’s started calling him “Hoppy,” and it stuck.

     He also played baseball for the Monticello Cubs for 35 years, managing the team off and on in the later years.

     He began full-time bus driving in 1969, stopped for four years when he drove a charter bus, and started up again in 1980. That lasted until just last month.

     “Busses got a lot better, and the roads are better,” Wright said.

     At the Cone Shoppe, Hoppy was sporting his new “Hoppy’s Kids” T-shirt. Earlier in the day, fourth-grader Paige Rickels had handed Hoppy the shirt, and told him he needed to wear it after school that day. Even then, he wasn’t suspicious.

     “Nothing dawned on me then,” Hoppy said.

     During Hoppy’s celebration, all the kids on the bus got their own “Hoppy’s Kids” shirt, which says “Worlds Greatest Bus Driver” on the back.

     Wright said that even though “it’s just time to slow down,” it wasn’t easy stepping back from his regular route.

     “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he said. “Those kids; you get pretty close to them. It’s like a family.”

     Hayen said: “He is so kind and humble, and truly is one of a kind. Our family will definitely miss him.

     “The world needs more Hoppies.”