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Tinsel and Tutus @ Reynolds Performance Hall — 12/12/13
12/12 — The Conway Symphony Orchestra entertained with Christmas music, including highlights from The Nutcracker performed by the Arkansas Festival Ballet.
Every parent, sister and brother in our region is saddened this week by the tragic Woodmore Elementary School bus accident Monday that killed at least five children and put a dozen more in the hospital - six in critical condition.
Altogether, 37 children were on the speeding bus heading home from school when it rolled over into a telephone pole and a tree on Talley Road, splitting in half. In those frightful seconds, the lives of those youngsters and their families - along with that of the driver and his family - changed.
It took hours for emergency crews to remove all of the trapped children. The driver, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker, was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.
Three fourth-graders, one first-grader and one kindergartner lost their lives: Fourth-grader Cordayja Jones, 9, loved being a big sister and was a kind-hearted girl, family members said. Zoie Nash, also a fourth-grader and 9, made good grades and was on a dance team. She loved playing softball. One of her brothers was injured in the crash but survived. The other children also had their own special stories and loves and talents. Now they are gone in all but memory.
According to Walker's arrest affidavit, the bus was traveling at a high speed on a narrow winding road when the driver lost control of the bus and swerved off of the road to the right, striking an elevated driveway and mailbox. He then swerved to the left and the bus began to overturn, hitting a telephone pole and a tree, the affidavit states. Walker lived with his mother and is the father of a 3-year-old. By neighbors' descriptions, he is quiet, respectful and hard-working - holding down two jobs.
But he also was is young, and just two months ago sideswiped a car while driving the bus. He was working for the second-largest school bus contracting firm in the country, Durham School Services - a company with a spotty record (346 crashes in the past two years, according to federal figures).
The accident is now under investigation by police, the district attorney and the National Transportation Safety Board.
If a horrific accident like this can have silver linings, one is without question the outpouring of support for the Woodmore community - a community where the school is underperforming and the children face many challenges.
Businesses and churches have flooded the community with sandwiches and other subsistence and comfort items. Tyner students donated blood at the school on Tuesday, and art teachers at Orchard Knob Elementary oversaw the making of a banner for Woodmore students. A candelight vigil gave the community a way to mourn together Tuesday evening at Woodmore Elementary, and the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga has set up "The Woodmore Fund" for donations to help the families involved.
Other possible silver linings may be that state and county officials will now look again at how bus contracts and bus drivers are chosen and trained, as well as whether school buses in Tennessee should have seat belts.
It would seem a no-brainer that public school buses should have not only seat belts but also additional - even sophisticated - safety equipment.
And it would seem a no-brainer that public school systems would employ contractors with the ultimate in school bus safety records and hiring practices.
But in Tennessee and Hamilton County, neither of those no-brainer safeguards are in place.
On Tuesday Gov. Bill Haslam said "it's time to have that conversation" about Tennessee school bus safety, noting both the Woodmore bus accident and another last year in Knoxville.
Tennessee's individual local school districts are in charge of buses and bus safety, either operating buses themselves or through contracting with individual drivers or companies. School authorities have been resistant to changes in state law requiring bus seat belts, citing enormous expenses.
"I think it's time to have all the parties come to the table and have a thoughtful conversation about what can we do to make our school buses as safe as we can," Haslam said.
Actually, it seems that time is long past. How many lives does it take?
