When Jeff O’Meara first started hopping on school buses as a kid, he never wanted to follow in the footsteps of the driver. But chance circumstances meant he was drawn into a rewarding career in the bus industry.
Jeff O’Meara’s first memories started with a school bus and, nearly 67 years later, it continues to revolve around running school bus services. After decades upon decades of unwavering service to Wonthaggi locals and the surrounding regional Victoria communities, Jeff was deservedly rewarded last year when he was named as joint winner of the Bus Association Victoria’s (BusVic) School Bus Driver of the Year.
“I was surprised, a bit embarrassed and also humbled to be a joint winner of the award,” he told ABC. “It came as a complete shock – I have only done what I thought was best for the children and to be rewarded in this way was humbling.”
It may seem like he always wanted to be a bus driver, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. His time on a bus began in the middle of 1956 when his mother decided he wasn’t learning anything at the one-room, one-teacher school at West Creek, so she enrolled him at North Wonthaggi Primary School.
Jeff was soon dropped at the school gate and told to walk down to the Korumburra Road corner to catch the afternoon bus back home three miles to Wonthaggi. It was the start of the young student’s love affair with buses, even if he never thought he would end up being a bus driver.
“I remember that first bus, a 1946 Federal, that duly arrived and took me on my first trip on a bus,” he says. “The bus stopped at our front gate then drove off with me still aboard – I didn’t know I had to open the old mechanical door myself.”
It was the first of many lessons for Jeff on a bus. This initial foray may not have showed him the ropes of customer service, but he was soon transferred onto a different school bus driven by a man named ‘Ducky’.
Over the next 11 years, he was taken to and from school by “a great chap” who provided the silver standard for school bus drivers. Despite this role model to look up to, Jeff wanted to work in the railways as a loco driver.
Instead, he wound up working in the local Holden garage. In 1974, just before his wedding, the business went broke and his career took an unexpected pivot.
“My now wife of nearly 49 years, Rose, married me while I was unemployed,” he says. “But all was not lost – the father of the panel beater at the garage who had also lost his job offered me a role.”
The employer, Albert, was a contractor who also operated the Cowes-Ventnor-Wonthaggi school bus service with an old 1966 Comair Bedford – the same bus model Jeff used to take to school just five years prior. In the early months of 1975, Albert told him to get his DC licence to drive the bus.
He remembers Rose bringing the important envelope up to the workshop and opening it with him. That night, he was driving the bus, but not without challenges.
“I knew the bus route, but I had to ask the kids where the stops were,” he says. “This started some long days, driving the bus morning and night and also building the power lines in between as part of the other contractor work.”
Before Jeff was to go on his first trip, Albert passed on three key rules for driving a school bus:
“Rule one: keep the kids safe,” he says. “Rule two: keep the kids safe. Rule three: refer to rules one and two.”
After successfully memorising and abiding by the three key rules, Jeff spent the next few years driving the Bedford and dealing with poor brakes, vaporising and blown head gaskets. From his early memories of driving the bus, he summised that the kids approved of him because he was able to manage the ENV five-speed crash gear box.
Yet this wasn’t a permanent stint in the bus industry. Circumstances changed and he was out testing poles and inspecting SEC lines. Just over 20 years later, he would be told that his workplace was crashing down after privatisation. On October 15, 1996, his position as a major plant operator in Wonthaggi was made redundant. Three days later, he was out of a job.
On the way home, he despondently visited his old boss Albert to tell him the news. Upon hearing the change, Albert agreed to an offer that would forever alter Jeff’s path.
“I asked whether I could buy the bus run, to which he agreed,” he says. “Albert’s generosity in agreeing to sell the contract let me back into the bus industry.”
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On December 1, 1996, Jeff and Rose started on the newly acquired bus run in a 1316 Mercedes-Benz. As it was near the end of the school year, only the younger students were still taking the bus. Jeff would be in for a shock on his first day on the new run.
“I arrived at a stop on the first morning and a young girl was waiting for the bus,” he says. “I asked her name, and to my surprise, she was the daughter of one of the boys I had taken to school years before.”
It may seem like a return to the bus industry was always written in the stars for Jeff, but he faced challenges to get back. He says the biggest hurdle was having to complete six accreditation exams on material that largely wasn’t relevant to what a regional school bus operator does.
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All went well until nearly a year later in August 1997, when a secret review of the Wonthaggi school bus network found that two buses had to go from the fleet. One operator was set to finish and duly departed, leaving the final bus to go up to Jeff and one more. As their contracts were signed on the same day, they had a month to sort it out.
“As I had known them for many years, we hatched a plan for me to buy him out,” he says. “We stepped up into a 1994 Hino RK for the start of the 1998 school year.”
Having bought two contracts, it was a tough few years financially for Jeff and Rose. Yet for the next decade, they made do and forged a living with the school bus run.
It took 11 years for the next roadblock to present itself. The Hino RK had performed trouble-free for them up until a chance phone call from Public Transport Victoria’s (PTV) regional manager in Traralgon, who suggested that the 49-seater wasn’t coping with the rise of students on Phillip Island.
“Wayne asked if we would consider upgrading to a 61-seat bus and we agreed,” Jeff says. “In late 2008 we settled on a new bus that was delivered in February the next year.”
The new bus was a completely Australian-built IVECO chassis from Dandenong, Victoria that had an Express body from Macksville, New South Wales fitted on top. It had an immediate impact on the growing number of kids he was driving.
“The new bus was a great move – the kids absolutely loved it,” he says. “The air-conditioning made the ride enjoyable with no window fogging, there was no more suspension squeaking and the engine conquered the hills with ease.”
It’s continued to service Jeff well all the way up to his deserved BusVic award last year. Upon receiving the award, he says he was transported back to the best parts of driving school runs each day.
“I love driving the bus and interacting with the kids and watching them develop from shy Year 7’s to confident teenagers ready to head out into the world,” he says. “I never had any trouble with the hundreds of kids I transported to school, they mostly complied with the rules.
“I respect them all as they find their own way in life, and it means they respect me. I’ve been privileged to be a small part of their lives.”
Jeff’s influence on the many school kids he has driven is clear. One of his passengers, Alison, asked him to drive the wedding car for her on her special day, just like he used to when she was going to and from school.
For an operator that lives and breathes the school run, he has had his fair share of tragedies. He says he recalls finding out that certain students had tragically passed away or suffered accidents that completely changed their lives.
When one particular kid tragically became a quadriplegic, he remembers the BusVic team helping to raise several thousand dollors to buy equipment that made his life more bearable. It’s clear the fondness that Jeff has for his passengers has made him a cherished member of his local community.
The benefits and heartwarming moments have made him very grateful for falling back into the bus industry. Now, after receiving his BusVic award, he’s pondering the final stages of his career and says he can’t help but feel fortunate for the career he has had driving buses.
“After operating our service for more than 26 years and holding my DC licence for 48 years, perhaps another direction beckons,” he says. “Being a driver for a regional school bus has been great, I’ve made lifelong friends along the way.
“At my age, I do think about retirement and my future plans with Rose – who knows what’s in store!”