Koberstein Retirement
By DOROTHY B. POWERS
Spokesman-Review Staff Writer
May 30, 1971
REARDAN, Wash.--People say Hank ("John Henry, really, but call me Hank") Koberstine loves kids.
But they only know the half of it.
Kids love Hank, right back.
Proof of Hank's end of the mutual affection bargain is the fact he reared four of his own children, now all grown.
Then he began driving a country school bus--30-plus kids for 100 miles a day for 21 years.
Still Not Enough
That still wasn't enough kids. So he and his wife four years ago started all over again by taking a tiny brother and sister into their home as foster children. Their foster daughter now is 6, and their foster son, 4.
This week, all "Hank's kids" on the country bus are sad.
Hank's quitting.
The bus ride that takes all the farm kids from the Seven-Mile area to school in Reardan won't be the same, ever again.
Hank is "family" to a second generation of school kids now; he drives "kids of my former kids" on his bus.
Farm 'Kids' Best
"I'm hauling 34 kids now," chuckles Hank. "They're all farm kids and there's nothing better!"
Hank made a "family" out of his bus kids.
"Whenever any of my little ones got sick--I had 'em from first graders on up and this year even kindergarteners--the older kids took care of them.
"The older girls bedded the little ones down on the seats and covered them with their coats. My children always were considerate of each other, which I really appreciated."
Hank began driving the farm kids to school in 1950.
Weather Unfriendly
The weather hated him that first year.
"It was March 1950, and we had one awful blizzard. We left Reardan at five minutes to 10 in the morning, because school had been dismissed to get the kids home. I finally got them all home at 9 o'clock that night.
"I'd started out with one bus. It broke down. They brought me another one. From then on, it was slow going. I had to stop and get gas from farmers twice. We had good heaters on the bus, luckily. We kept warm, and some of the kids had their lunches they'd brought to school from home, so we shared. One of the high school girls gave me part of her lunch."
He even remembers what the girl gave him: "It was a tuna-fish sandwich."
That same year, when spring came, heavy snow run-off came with it.
Riders Lend a Hand
"The water was running and the roads washed out. Naturally, I got stuck and the kids all would get out and push. One time when they'd finished pushing the bus so we could get on to school, one little guy said: 'Hank, if it'd been anybody but you driving, we'd have pulled "backward on the bus, to keep from going to school."
Hank left home every morning at 7 a.m., and picked up each bus rider at home, on a route that gobbled up 100 miles a day. He departed school in Reardan at 3:20 p.m.
Just before they got to Reardan each morning, the bus kids crossed a railroad track. That spot was their favorite "give Hank his present" place. Over the years, Hank tells, 'they'd always give me whatever present they had--birthday or Christmas--and tell me to stop there and open it. That was our place." Coats, hats, shirts all came from the kids' hearts.
Hank's humor tickled the kids.
Good Turn
"One time," he recalls," I got after some girls for spilling cake crumbs on the bus floor."
"If you're going to spill that cake like that, the least you could do is wrap it up so I could eat it," he concluded the lecture.
Next day, after the girls got off at their homes, Hank happened to walk down the bus aisle past their seats. There sat a present for Hank a home-made cake, in entirety.
As crop after crop of "Hank's kids" grew up, they stayed in touch. Girls came to his farm home on Route 4 to show him their engagement rings, "and even their babies, later."
The first day Hank began his job all those years ago, the youngsters called him "Mr. Koberstine."
"I told them, 'That doesn't go. Call me Hank.'"
And they did.
If Hank's humor delighted the kids, it was a two-way street for fun.
"One day a high school boy lost 50 cents on the bus. As he got off, he said: 'Hank, if you find any money on the bus, save it for me.' "
Hank searched the bus during the school day, found the 50 cents and that night on the homeward-bound bus gave it to the teenager.
"Couple of days later," tells Hank, "a little first grader came up to me. 'Hank, if you find any money on the bus, save it for me,' he said. I asked him, "How much did you lose?" And that little first grader said right back, 'How much did that other boy lose the other day when you gave him money?"
Goodbyes a Must
The farm kids just couldn't let Hank leave without saying good-bye.
Each kid took his own way of showing it.
One little kindergartner went home sobbing to his mother: "I won't get to ride with Hank when I'm a first grader!"
The four oldest girls on the bus, all teenagers, chose a different means of telling Hank what they thought. Susan Doughty, Terry St. Germain, Bonnie Samek and Debbie LaRue planned a "small" potluck dinner good-bye party. They made a wall hanging of wood covered with yellow burlap, on which was drawn a school bus. A picture of each bus rider was pasted in his usual place on the bus drawing.
But the "current" bus riders had reckoned without the "former" riders.
Everybody who'd ever "ridden with Hank" wanted to come. Spring Hill Grange Hall was the site. Hank's daughter, Mrs. Barbara Clause, and his wife were in on the surprise. Mothers of youngsters and "just plain neighbors" worked. Mrs. Howard W. Durheim and Mrs. Walter Loftis of Nine Mile Falls were in charge of donations for Hank's gift appropriately, a reclining chair.
Everybody in the countryside "did something" for Hank's party. Mrs. George Doughty Jr., and Mrs. Richard Kamm, both of Nine Mile Falls, aided by Mrs. E. D. Priest, Route 4, collaborated in baking a cake shaped like a school bus. There was nothing small about the entire event. For instance, that cake measured almost three feet long and stood 16 inches high.
Other farm families brought hot dishes and favorites salads and "home cooking."
When the evening concluded, the bus kids, it turned out, had given a "small" dinner party for 130 people!
The kids and Hank have said their goodbyes.
But everybody knows the kids will be stopping in frequently at Hank's farm.
And, even in their goodbyes, there was fun.
As one high school girl told everybody: "We always watched Hank's forehead. When he got the third wrinkle in his forehead, we knew It was time to quiet down."