Looking Back: The Big Yellow Bus

Looking Back

Looking Back: The Big Yellow Bus

by Marcia Napier, Grain Valley Historical Society

I don’t know when Grain Valley first had school buses. Grain Valley’s first yearbook, published in 1936, had a photograph of the school bus driver on the page with the Board of Education. My parents graduated in 1932 and they never mentioned school buses. They did talk about the barn behind the school where the country kids tied their horses during the school day. It was more of a covered hitching post with a trough along the front for hay or feed. The older boys would go out once or twice daily to give the horses water to drink. Mr. Ray Frantz was one of Grain Valley’s first school bus drivers. When I look at the photo I always wonder if the tie and hat were part of a “required” uniform for bus drivers. I believe this particular photo was taken around 1940. There were two buses in Grain Valley at that time. They each had two routes in the morning to transport student to school and two more in the afternoon when the students were driven home. One bus went north to pick up students and the other went south. The students farthest away from school were picked up first. Their second run was to pick up students near the school. During the 1950s, the buses in Grain Valley were operated by Elmer Perry of Oak Grove. their My parents bought out Mr. Perry in January of 1961. At that time, Grain Valley had four buses but each bus still had two routes. The first school buses in the U.S. weren't buses at all: they were wagons. Known colloquially as “kid hacks” (“hack” referring to a type of horse-drawn carriage), these wagons were used as early as 1886 to ferry children in rural areas to the one-room schools that were popular at the time. They were built by Wayne Brothers in Indiana. The Wayne corporation went out of business in 1992. Today Blue Bird and Thomas remain two of the biggest manufactures of school buses. There are many state and federal safety regulations for school buses. Probably the most recognized safety feature is their color. Scientists have found that people are able to see yellow objects in their peripheral field 1.24 times better than red. Unlike red, yellow is also more easily noticed in a dark environment. This is one of the major reasons “school bus yellow,” an actual color, was chosen. The black lettering on yellow is the easiest color combination for drivers to see in the darkness of early morning when students are being picked up for school. While school buses were the main form of transportation during much of last century, beginning in the 1980s, fewer and fewer students road the big yellow bus. And yet, according to all the records, the school bus is the safest vehicle on the road—your child is much safer taking a bus to and from school than traveling by car. Although four to six school-age children die each year on school transportation vehicles, that's less than one percent of all traffic fatalities nationwide.

Image credit: Grain Valley Historical Society

Letter to the Editor:

As a senior citizen living in Grain Valley, I want to thank the City for its wonderful service during the City Wide Clean Up. From the young woman with a smile in her voice who took my appointment for curbside pick-up to those who carefully separated recyclables during pick-up, it was great service. It is a joy to have those items out of my house. I actually feel lighter! My appreciation goes to the City and its employees. Jan Brill, Grain Valley

Letters to the editor and guest columns are welcome. This is YOUR community news source. Send your letters, comments, and story ideas by email, mail, or send us a message on social media (@grainvalleynews). Email: news@grainvalleynews.com Mail: Grain Valley News: PO Box 2972, Grain Valley MO 64029

Partnership presents two scholarships to recent grads

The Grain Valley Partnership’s Kissick Classic, is an annual fundraising event to provide scholarships to Grain Valley High School graduates going into the engineering/ construction field. The tournament in named in memory of Jim Kissick, a longtime friend of the Partnership. Two scholarships were awarded this year. Cody Hunter will attend Missouri S&T in the fall. Tre Rosales will be utilizing his A+ scholarship at MCC and then transferring to Missouri S&T after he completes his associate degree. If you wish to be a part of the Kissick Classic, visit: https://www.growgrainvalley.org/livinghere/events-calendar/#! event/2021/9/24/kissick- classic-golftournament

Left to right: Tre Rosales and Cody Hunter received scholarships from the Grain Valley Partnership in memory of Jim Kissick. The organization’s annual golf tournament is named in Kissick’s memory. Photo credit: Grain Valley Partnership

FENSTERMAKER continued from page 1 Murphy recognized for 15 years of service to City

Grain Valley City Administrator Ken Murphy was recognized during the June 28th Board of Aldermen meeting for his 15 years of service to the City. Left to right: City Administrator Ken Murphy and Grain Valley Mayor Chuck Johnston. Photo credit: City of Grain Valley

aided them in realizing their dream of opening up a pub in their hometown. Fenstermaker wanted to introduce a new kind of beer to patrons of the city. Growing up he said that he was a Miller High Life or Miller Lite drinker and that many citizens in Grain Valley mostly drank domestic beers. He’s now converted to a craft beer drinker. “That’s like picking your favorite child,” Fenstermaker said when asked what his favorite beer is at the Iron Kettle. “If I had to choose it would be the Merlin’s amber ale. When my brother brewed it, I said, ‘This is it.’” “I will put our Irish ale against any ale in Kansas City. We want to convert one domestic beer drinker at a time.” He was converted to blonde ale and amber ale drinker by his brother Brian, who has been brewing beer for 12 years. In recent years, the Fenstermaker brothers are now closer than they were before. It was the brewery that helped them develop a stronger relationship and they now call themselves “The Brew Brothers.” “Once I tasted his amber ale, I looked at him and said, ‘We can sell this.’” Fenstermaker said. “He’s the master of potions as we call him,” Fenstermaker said. “We also call him the kilted brewer because he wears a kilt while he’s brewing. “Slowly over time, it became what we wanted to do. We actually weren’t close growing up. It wasn’t that we didn’t like each other, we just didn’t have anything in common. What brought us together was the love of beer and the love of brewing beer.” So far, Fenstermaker said he likes the direction his business is going and is glad he made the decision to leave the education field. “The business is doing well,” Fenstermaker said. “It can do better. That’s my job to make it do better. I put my career above my family my entire professional life. I made them sacrifice. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be there for them. “Even if I have to work here at night, I can still be there in the morning to make my kids breakfast. I have never been able to do that before.”

As massive livestock operations move in, fighting them gets harder for rural neighbors

by Allison Kite, Missouri Independent Jeff Jones has lived on his family’s land east of Columbia his entire life. Some of the family’s farms are more than 150 years old. And Jones, who raises cattle and grows row crops, has no intentions of going anywhere. But after years of fighting, his community is home to a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, that can raise as many as 10,000 hogs at any given time. The facility, which opened in 2019, houses the animals in barns built over concrete pits to store manure for months at a time. Jones and CAFO critics consider them a health hazard — or at least a nuisance. One of the most common complaints is the stench from hog manure and dead animals. “I’m farmer to the bone. My nose is tough. This is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” Jones said of the Callaway Farrowing CAFO. “This is like breathing straight ammonia. It’ll make your eyes water.” Jones is part of Friends of Responsible Agriculture and said he fought the Callaway CAFO “tooth and nail.” But the CAFO permit went all the way up to the Western District Court of Appeals, where it was upheld. Some rural communities in northwest Missouri have successfully fought off CAFOs. One facility proposed for Livingston County withdrew its permit request earlier this year after opposition and a lawsuit from neighbors. In 2019, the Valley Oaks Steak Company southeast of Kansas City, announced it would close its doors after an earlier attempt to expand. But in Jones’ view, it’s getting harder for local communities to stop industrial hog farms. “They’re passing laws out of the benefit of money instead of out of the benefit of people, so the people’s voice is becoming less instead of more,” Jones said. In 2019, Missouri had more than 500 CAFOs, according to the Missouri Coalition for the Environment — far less than the thousands in Iowa, the largest pork producing state in the United States. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources did not provide data on the number of permitted CAFOs each year, but according to its website, it has issued permits for about 20 more since 2019. An attorney representing several communities fighting CAFOs in their backyards said the number seemed to be on the uptick. But an attorney for the industry said the number of the largest CAFOs — permitted to house 17,500 swine or more than 7,000 cattle — was stagnant. Neighboring Kansas has about 435 CAFOs and more than 2,400 smaller livestock operations. Craig Volland, of the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the number had grown steadily. One CAFO in Greeley County in far Western Kansas has 180 hog barns and was looking in 2014 to expand to become the second largest in the country. Volland said right-to-farm rules in Kansas have made the state more friendly to CAFOs. But until recent years, regulators stuck close to federal CAFO rules in issuing permits. Over the past several years, Missouri has passed several pieces of legislation to make way for CAFOs. About 10 years ago, the Missouri General Assembly eliminated citizens’ ability to make nuisance complaints for non-economic damages against CAFOs. As of 2019, local and county health departments can’t issue ordinances governing CAFOs that are any stricter than state rules. That rule is currently tied up in court. Opponents say the 2019 law undermines local communities’ ability to protect residents and their natural resources. Robert Brundage, an attorney who represents several agricultural organizations, said the legislation, known as Senate Bill 391, put local communities and the state on “equal footing.” “Senate Bill 391 has prevented counties from imposing arbitrary siting restrictions on CAFOs that were never based in sound science,” Brundage said. “They were only enacted to prevent the siting of virtually any new livestock operation in the county, so the legislature has returned some more common sense approach to siting CAFOs in the state that’s based on science.” This year, the Legislature limited who can inspect agricultural facilities to state and federal agriculture and environmental officials and law enforcement in an apparent effort to bar local health departments from viewing the facilities. Gov. Mike Parson signed the legislation into law Thursday, saying it “protects producers and supports Missouri’s agriculture industry.” Kansas, too, has been criticized for tipping the scales in favor of CAFOs. Officials with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment have been negotiating with large hog farmers to amend state regulations and allow producers to divide their herds into distinct business operations on one piece of property, essentially allowing them to double the size of their CAFO without moving it any farther from the closest body of water, homes, churches or schools. “They seem to be trying to accommodate the livestock industry at the expense, in our opinion, of the environment,” Volland said. KDHE said the regulations weren’t in conflict with state law and didn’t represent a shift in policy. A CAFO, Jones said, is “not something anybody wants to live next to.” When the wind blows right, he can smell the hog waste from inside his farmhouse. He said it gets in his clothes. But in recent years, neighbors have steadily lost their opportunities for recourse. In 2016, lawmakers changed the makeup of the Clean Water Commission, which signs off on CAFO permits. Critics argued that the change made the commission more friendly to agricultural interests. The chairwoman, Ashley McCarty, is executive director of Missouri Farmers Care, which advocates for farming and agricultural interests and certifies counties with favorable rules as “agri-ready.” McCarty didn’t return multiple requests for comment. Stephen Jeffery, an attorney who helped Jones and neighbors try to fight off the CAFO in Callaway County, said neighbors often voice concerns about CAFO permits but are rarely heard. By 2016, more than two dozen counties had adopted CAFO regulations, according to the University of Missouri Extension. Then the General Assembly prohibited such rules. Jeffery represented plaintiffs who are fighting to get the rule reversed. In a lawsuit filed in 2020, they said the legislation “hinders (counties’) ability to effectively protect the public health of their county residents,” noting one county had prohibited construction of manure pits in areas where the soil is prone to shrinking and swelling and could cause leaks in the manure. “Under the current Missouri law and regulations, the local community doesn’t really get that much input,” Jeffery said. “They’re able to provide comments on a proposed permit, but 99.9% of the time, the requests that they make for changes or revisions, unfortunately, are not implemented.” Supporters contend the county health ordinances allow local communities to set rules that are appropriate for them. Such a rule existed in Livingston County, where opponents successfully fought off a 10,500-hog CAFO near the Poosey Conservation Area. But while the neighbors in Livingston County celebrated the CAFO operator’s decision to withdraw its permit application, the Clean Water Commission eased groundwater restrictions that would have applied to the CAFO, making it easier for future operators to build in areas where environmentalists say they might threaten the groundwater. While Jeffery has represented several communities attempting to battle back CAFOs, he noted the bulk of permit applications don’t garner the kind of attention the one in Livingston County did. “What that tells me,” he said, “is that most CAFO operators are responsible enough that they site these facilities … far enough away that they’re not going to adversely affect their neighbors.”

www.missouriindependent.com

Page 6 Happy Independence Day!

Note: The following text is a transcription of the stone engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. Source: National Archives.

In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Image credit: National Archives