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Page 2A — Wednesday, August 24, 2016, The True Citizen
ROUTE TO SUCCESS
In the late 1970s, Rev. Smith served on the
Burke County Improvement Committee along
with civil rights leaders Herman Lodge, Rev.
J.W. Bell and Shelley Coleman. A seat on the
Burke County Board of Education had opened,
and the committee wanted to fill it with a “good
and fair person” who would be equally sup
portive to the black community. Rev. Smith
immediately thought of Johnny Jenkins, a
salesman he worked with at Goldberg’s Fur
niture. “He had one of the biggest furniture
routes, and he did an incredible job dealing
with everyone,” Rev. Smith said.The committee
agreed and suggested his name to the Grand
Jury, which appointed the BOE members back
Rev. J.J. Smith wearing bus uniform then.The Grand Jury voted Jenkins in and he
from the 1970s. began his first term in 1978. Seven years later,
he was appointed BOE chairman. Jenkins
remains chairman today and is one of the
longest standing BOE members in the entire
state of Georgia.
Rev. Smith is way more than a bus driver. With a doctor
ate in theology, the North Carolina native is also Dr. Smith
and has been the pastor of Palmer Grove Baptist Church
for the past 40 years. A man of the arts, he is a prolific folk
artist and musician. When Rev. Smith is not driving the
bus, you might spot him on two wheels. The motorcycle
enthusiast still takes regular rides on his Honda Shadow
and the Gold Wing he bought back in 1984.
A DRIVEN DRIVER
By Elizabeth Billips
lizbillips@yahoo.com
M ornings are the Rev. J.J. Smith’s favorite time.
For 45 straight years, he has shared them with other
people’s children.
“I love picking them up in the morning because I know I’m tak
ing them to the right place,” the 78-year-old man of God says as
he swings open the door of the big yellow Burke County Board of
Education school bus. "I know I am taking them to a place of learn
ing ... a place where they will get experiences they need in life.”
Rev. Smith first got in the driver’s seat when he was 34 and slap
in the middle of raising his own tribe of children, which would
eventually number 10.
The bus schedule fit in well with his ministerial duties and day
job at Goldberg’s Furniture. Plus, the extra $150 a month went a
long way back in 1972.
It wouldn’t take Rev. Smith long to discover his new job was
also an outlet to minister through small acts of kindness.
“When children step on this bus, the way they are treated has
a lot to do with how they are going to act at school that day,” he
says. “It sets the tone.”
R ev. Smith pulls into the loading dock at Burke County
Middle School as teenagers mill past with neon bookbags
slung over their shoulders.
It seems like just yesterday when the kids carried books home
in stacks, wore bell bottoms and grew their hair long.
Those early bus driving years were in the thick of the integration
of Burke County’s public schools.
Across the South, hostilities ran high and bled into
lunchrooms, hallways and school buses.
But when Rev. Smith looked up in his rearview
mirror he just saw kids being kids.
“I really never had a problem... white or black,”
he said. “It was never an issue.”
He thinks about those old days and laughs
remembering his route that began at Brier Creek
and ran along the foot of what would eventually
T he bus weaves through the back streets of Waynesboro,
dropping off students at apartments, houses and daycare
centers.
“Good bye Mr. Jones... have a great day,” Rev. Smith calls out
to a second grader as a grandmother waves from a front porch.
“Good Day Mr. Watson ... enjoy your afternoon,” he exclaims
as the next child gets off.
Rev. Smith drives back to the shop to park his bus until 7 a.m.
the next morning.
He may have 78 years and millions of miles behind him, but
he doesn’t intend on hitting the brakes quite yet.
“These aren’t just kids ... they are our tomorrow,” he explains.
"And it is the responsibility of all of us adults to help bring them
up in the right atmosphere.”
He glances back at the bus one more time before tucking another
school day behind him.
“As long as I have my health, I have no plans to retire,” Rev.
Smith promises. “I love this job ... and when I’m not doing it, I
feel like I’m being robbed.”
become Plant Vogtle. Some parts were just rib
bons of rural dirt roads that dissolved into thick
red mud when the rains came.
"Hatcher-Fairfield Hill,” Rev. Smith says,
shaking his head and describing the steep hill that
topped the road in Shell Bluff. “The only way
to get to the top in that bus was to floorboard it
.... to put the pedal to the metal. And if it was
raining, there was no way.”
More than once his bus sank to its axles in
muck.
To add to the problem, there were no radios in
those days and no way to call for help.
“You would send a couple of your big boys
to the nearest house to call the school,” he said.
“What else could you do?”
Discipline was different in those days too, and
Rev. Smith can remember parents encouraging
him to “take his belt off’ if their children got
out of hand.
He never did, nor did he engage in the practice of making mis
behaving students get off the bus.
“Back in those days if a child was acting up, a driver could
actually put them out on the side of the road and send word to
their parents,” he laughs. “I never did ... but they knew I could,
so they tended to act a little better.”
Over the last four and a half decades, school bus conduct has
never been a real issue for Rev. Smith - and he believes that has
a lot to do with holding children responsible for their actions and
creating a mutual line of respect.
That begins the second they cross the bus threshold.
“They always get a big ‘Good Morning,’ ... every morning,”
Rev. Smith says. "I always say it, even if they don’t respond. Most
of them eventually start saying it back.”
A t 2:30 p.m., Rev. Smith puts the bus back in gear and begins
picking up students to take them home.
He gathers his first bunch at the primary school and looks over
a second grader’s work folder while awaiting the next few from
Blakeney.
“It looks like you’re off to a good start Mr. Hughes,” he says,
clapping the boy’s back and congratulating him on his high marks.
“Caring and sharing are part of a Christian’s responsibility,”
he explains. “With this job, I get a chance to do that every day.”
The bus stops again at the middle school, and Rev. Smith gets
off to help load one of his wheelchair-bound students.
For the second school year, he is driving a special education bus.
“I have been able to experience something the average
never gets to,” he says as he high-fives a sev-
grader. “Before, I didn’t realize what some of
kids go through just to get to school ... I
really been blessed.”
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