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More than 75 of Kansas’s best school bus drivers put their skills to the test at the 55th Annual Kansas State Pupil Transportation Association (KSPTA) Safe Driving Competition, hosted by Goddard USD 265, on June 4.
Connie Marshall believes she has the best office window.
Marshall is referring to the windshield of the school bus she drives about 140 miles daily for Chapman Unified School District 473.
“This is my dream job,” she said. “I’m really happy doing this. I get to see the sunrise in the morning.”
Trent Armstrong, transportation director for USD 473, said he appreciates Marshall’s strong work ethic and dedication to the students she drives to and from school every day.
“She cares about the kids. She puts her heart into everything she does,” he said. “She’s just a superior driver. I can’t say enough good things about her.”
Role model, mentor, dedicated professional. These are just a few words people who know and work with Dorothy Dorman use to describe the winner of the small bus division of the 2025 National School Transportation Association School Bus Driver International Safety Competition.
“She can drive anything,” Alan Funk, Wichita North Lot location manager for First Student bus transportation company, said of Dorman. “You put her in something yellow and she can drive it.”
Dorman has been a driver for First Student since 2008, the company that contracts with Wichita Unified School District 259, and has been competing in bus driving contests since 2009. She was the overall state champion at the Kansas driving competition in early June in Derby. She followed that up with the first-place win in the small bus category at the international competition in late June in Austin, Texas, which included a written test and a rigorous road course, testing her knowledge and driving skills under pressure. Dorman is the first bus driver from Kansas to win in a category at the international competition.
Kansas school bus drivers helped 191,379 Kansas students roll safely to their destinations during the 2022-2023 school year.
Kansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Randy Watson went head-to-head in a bus rodeo competition with Mollie Cornwell, a five-time State Safe Driver Competition winner and school bus driver at Derby Unified School District 260, for this year’s back-to-school video.
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