Today is Monday, January 16, 2017.  It is 50 years to the day since Chokio saved a bus load of their children from freezing to death in what I call the Chokio Bus Rescue.

I have looked to this day for more than two years.  For me, this day is a celebration of small-town strength and selflessness.  It is also the day I will finish posting about the Chokio Bus Rescue. The blog will remain on my website indefinitely.

This project started and ended with the wonderful Chokio Review. Just three days after the heroic rescue in 1967, the brand-new owners of the newspaper had a nearly-full front page of information about it, including photos of the stalled bus.

This page has been saved and carefully preserved by many.  When I found my mother’s copy, it sparked my interest in writing a book about the rescue.  When reality set in, I decided to create instead a blog on my website, where I could write about the memories of those involved in or related to the Chokio Bus Rescue.

Kay Grossman, editor of the Chokio Review, was warmly enthusiastic about the project, and kindly used her news columns to invite participation.  Later Nick Ripperger, owner of the Chokio Review, gave permission for me to post the original news coverage and images of the front page on my blog.

And finally, on January 19, Kay plans to reprise the story of the Chokio Bus Rescue in the pages of the Chokio Review, fifty years to the day since the original rescue coverage was published.

Community newspapers are the lifeblood of small towns.

Likewise, a school is the heart of a small town.

Chokio and neighboring Alberta combined  schools the same calendar year as the Chokio Bus Rescue, beginning in the fall of 1967.  This was just one of many decisions school leaders had to make over the years to keep their local schools viable and the children safe.

Responding to the crisis of a stranded school bus quickly became a community-wide effort on Monday, January 16, 1967. Everyone did what they could do and tragedy was averted.

And so, for most of the people interviewed for this blog, memories of the Chokio Bus Rescue are positive. The people I talked with tended to focus on the success of the mission and the uplifting outcome. 

Readership of the blog was modest, as I had made no effort to promote it.  For that reason, I am making a .PDF document available to those who would like the blog in its entirety in electronic form.

There is no cost for this copy.  Simply email [email protected] and I will reply with an attachment of the .PDF.

While actually getting a book published might have better preserved the story of the Chokio Bus Rescue, at least this blog may have pulled the story of this heroic event just a few decades back from eventual oblivion.

And maybe, like me, there will be a little preschooler, safe at home on a blizzardy night, who hears the story of the Chokio Bus Rescue, and is touched by the wonder of what strong and selfless small-town folk can accomplish by working together.

With gratitude to the Chokio Review and all who shared their memories,

Julie Stillwell Sorenson
 
P.S. Special thanks to my mother, Donna Stillwell, and my sister, Lisa Benusa.  Your unwavering support and encouragement made it possible for me to take this blog from an idea to a finished product. 

Burton Nypen was Superintendent at Chokio Public Schools at the time of the Chokio Bus Rescue, Monday, January 16, 1967.  He died in 2015, and so his widow, Gerry Nypen, shared her recollections of that  unforgettable day.

The Nypens lived in a large, two-story, older home provided by the school and located near it. Gerry said whenever there were winter storms threatening the area, Burton would be up early to decide whether or not he should close or delay school.

“About 4 a.m., he’d be checking on the weather.  Burt would be out on the highways, driving, checking on road conditions,” Gerry said.

The day of the blizzard started out with relatively mild temperatures, causing many to think they would be enjoying an unnaturally pleasant winter day. Reality would prove to be shockingly different.

School had barely begun when snow, driving wind and plunging temperatures made it apparent that a surprise blizzard was bearing down on the region.  Students were loaded into buses by 9:30 a.m.

John Mount, Harley Peters and Don Grossman were the bus drivers who found it necessary to turn back to the school, unable to see enough to drive safely.  Roger Amborn delivered all of his students, but could not get home, and stayed overnight with the Earl Melberg family. John Berlinger and the children on his bus stayed with Floyd and Dorothy Zimmerman.

Because Chokio’s buses did not have two-way radios, Clayton Kolling could not simply call in to the school to let them know his bus was stranded several miles south of town.  However, telephones were working, and calls were flying all over the community, especially to the Superintendent’s office.

“Burt was a calming person, and he tried to reassure others.  He was a hard worker for the school system,” Gerry said.

As the day wore on and early attempts to reach the bus failed, the tension rose.

“Someone called Burt and told him ‘I hope you have a heart attack,’” Gerry recalls. While her husband was handling the ordeal at school, Gerry was “at home, taking phone calls,” she said.

Finally the rescued children arrived at the school to warm up, eat and connect with the families that would provide overnight hospitality.

This writer recalls her father, Larry Stillwell, telling how Supt. Nypen had tears rolling down his face when he stood at the door as the children walked in.

After closing up the school, Burton returned home, where he and Gerry provided overnight hospitality to a couple of bus drivers and children.

Roger Gerdes knows what makes a small town tick.  He’s been mayor of Chokio for 20 years, and was recently re-elected to what he says will be his last two-year term.

He remembers how his introduction to elected community office began.  He received a surprise visit from Jim McNally, Doc Busch and Ervy Nelson.

“I had no idea why they came to see me,” Roger said.  They wanted him to run for mayor because the incumbent was not seeking another term.

“I told them I had never even been on the council before.  I said ‘put me down for the council,’ but they told me they already had that taken care of,” Roger said.  “So that’s how I got into this.”

Roger said he hadn’t planned on running for mayor in November 2016, but it appeared no one was going to run.  He decided to be on the ballot, and despite a competing last-minute candidate, Roger won two more years of work.

“It’s a job nobody wants. It don’t pay nothing.  You don’t do it for the money,” Roger explained. “Somebody has to do it.”

It’s this kind of commitment, seen repeatedly demonstrated in many local folks, that make a small town strong enough to withstand the forces that bring a community to decay and demise.

When the blizzard of January 16, 1967, suddenly put a busload of children at risk of freezing or death, a great many in Chokio did whatever was needed to support a rescue caravan and provide warm shelter at homes in town.

Roger was among those who helped.  He worked for Federated Telephone.

“Federated had trucks with dial telephones in them,” Roger explained.  He drove the truck in the rescue caravan and communicated with the Stevens County Sheriff, updating him on the rescue progress.

“The buses did not have two-way radios back then,” Roger said.

Earlier in the day Ruth went to get milk and take Avon products to Nelson’s store.  She could not see the garage in town, the visibility was so poor.

“We didn’t get weather warnings then like we do today,” Ruth noted.

Muriel Kolling and two children stayed at the Gerdes home.  “They couldn’t get home,” Roger recalls.

Muriel’s husband, Clayton, was the driver of the stranded bus, out walking in the blizzard to find help for the stranded busload of students.

Thanks to Clayton’s success in finding a farm home in the blizzard, he was able to tell rescuers how to find them.

“We knew exactly where the bus was,” Roger said.