FACES OF THE BCIU

WILMA HERRERA - BUS DRIVER

“It feels like you’re in charge of the whole world when you’re driving that big bus!”

Wilma Herrera has been a BCIU bus driver for 10 years and she doesn’t see herself stepping away from the driver’s seat for at least 20 more.

“I hope to retire from this job,” Wilma says. “That’s 20 years from now, but I want to be driving a bus until then.”

The Reading resident got her start as a bus driver when her then-4-year-old daughter attended the BCIU’s Head Start program. Wilma approached the bus driver about how she could get a driving job. She was working as a residential aide in a nursing home at the time and wanted something more interesting.

She’s never looked back.

“I’ve never thought of quitting, not even when I first started driving and I was learning how to deal with the kids,” Wilma says. “I can’t tell you why others hate it and I love it. I just do!”

Wilma was a driver of general education students for eight years and for the past two years has been the driver for two students with special needs. She picks them up in a mini school bus at their homes and takes them to and from their schools in Bethlehem.

Both students have minimal days on Wednesdays so a dispatcher may send her on a regular afternoon run within the Reading School District.

And that’s when Wilma is in her true element.

“They’re nice kids, no matter how bad they get,” she says. “I can always get around [their attitude]. How? With a great big smile.

“I’m not kidding. Tough but fair. And a smile at the right time goes a long way.

“You also have to be real flexible,” she continues. “If you’re rigid and it’s no way but your way, you won’t make it. You learn to take each situation as it comes and handle it.”

Wilma sees her position as one where she can be a confidant for her riders.

“I’ve had kids sit behind me on the bus and just talk,” she says. “And I try to listen. Gain their trust. I allow them to vent.

“I also think I’m something of a role model for them. I let them know there are better things out there, if they just focus and stay out of trouble, which is difficult for many of them because so many families are struggling. But I keep at it, because you never know.”

Some of Wilma’s influence must have taken effect, because at least two students she once drove to school now also are BCIU drivers.