Fleet Central

Three counties. Eighteen public high schools. Thirteen bus routes. Two bus runs per day. Five hundred passengers.

Numbers only a logician could love. Numbers a superintendent has to live with.

Mike Eubank is superintendent of Mid-America Technology Center at Wayne. Denny Prince is deputy superintendent and Quinton Knighton is transportation supervisor.

Like his predecessor, Dusty Ricks, Eubank has to make the numbers work on a daily basis.

The numbers are a given. The variables are another matter.

First the counties. McClain, Cleveland and Garvin comprise the area served by MATC.

The 18 public high schools are Blanchard, Bridge Creek, Dibble, Elmore City, Lexington, Lindsay, Little Axe, Maysville, Newcastle, Noble, Paoli, Pauls Valley, Purcell, Stratford, Wanette, Washington, Wayne and Wynnewood.

Of the 13 routes, 10 serve students at a single high school. The remaining four are shared routes – Purcell/Washington, Paoli/Pauls Valley, Stratford/Wayne and Lexington/ Wanette.

MATC also picks up adult students, home school students and virtual charter school students who attend MATC.

The bus riders account for roughly half of the student body on a daily basis, Eubank said.

Each bus route covers two round-trips a day. That’s  because high school students attend MATC in either the morning or afternoon. The remainder of their time is spent in classes at their home campus.

Eubank said in the past, there was also a fifth shared route for Blanchard and Dibble.

But enrollment growth in both of those districts now warrant a dedicated route for each of those districts.

Eubank has continued Ricks’ policy of retiring one or two buses a year, replacing them with one or two new buses.

Back in 2014, the average sticker price for a new bus was about $80,000.

Inflation has driven that cost way up.

“We ordered two in April and expect to get them by March,” Eubank said.

The 77-passenger bus cost $115,075 and a 72-passenger bus that will be handicap accessible was $126,168.

The new 72-passenger bus will bring to three the number of handicap accessible buses in the fleet.

“We keep a bus in the fleet for around 10 to 12 years,” Eubank said. “Our oldest bus is a 2008 model.”

In past years, MATC’s standard practice was to order new buses in the spring and take delivery before classes started in the fall.

But that changed with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The delay can be placed squarely on the supply chain doorstep as manufacturers face their own delays in receiving needed goods.

Eubank said the bus fleet averages about 1,700 miles per day. Bridge Creek and Stratford at the longest and next longest routes, respectively.

Back in 2014, the transportation budget was  a hefty $500,000, of which about $135,00 was spent on fuel. 

Presently, MATC’s annual transportation budget is $195,853, the lion’s share – 65.4 percent – of which goes to fuel costs to the tune of $128,082.

Back in 2014, MATC paid an average of $3.08 per gallon for diesel.

Over the past year, the center’s fuel costs averaged $2.91 per gallon for diesel and $2.43 per gallon for unleaded gasoline.

School buses aren’t known for fuel efficiency and average only 8.5 miles per gallon. Some have 60-gallon tanks and others have 100-gallon tanks.

The year 2014 wasn’t without its own challenges.

MATC took a hit while the James C. Nance Memorial Bridge was closed from January 31 to June 13, 2014. Their buses cross the bridge a dozen times a day.

It’s no easy task to keep  the wheels on the buses turning and Eubank credits Knighton, the mechanics and the bus drivers.

“Our bus drivers are also teachers and teacher assistants and are amazing people who do a great job every day,” he said.