Students Encourage Bus Driver To Return To College And He Graduates With High Honors

Sep 30, 2022 by apost team

“You can’t really explain the feeling. Like you’re constantly on cloud nine.” 

These were the words of a man who inspired many after he graduated from college while working as a school bus driver. His inspiration? The students he delivered to and from school every day. 

Clayton Ward grew up in Tennessee with his family, who owned a school bus company. While he attended college 10 years prior, he dropped out after only a few semesters. 

“I was a burnout. School, work. It just got too much for me,” Ward said in an interview with WCVB Channel 5 Boston in June 2020, admitting it took a toll on him juggling school and work. 

But even if he stopped going to college, the flame and desire for him to get his college degree never faded. "I never lost that need or that want to do more schooling or have a degree," he told CBS News in an interview. 

He then moved from Massachusetts to Virginia, where he landed a job as a school bus driver. For seven years, he drove 200 kids to and from school, safely bringing them to their destinations every single day. But little did he know that his life had just started for him at that point in time. 

Being the older person in a sea full of kids, one would think it’s always the students who will learn a thing or two from him. But that’s really not the case, as they taught him a lot about patience — a virtue that would eventually sway the wind for him in an incredible direction. “I’m a very patient person, but you learn a lot more patience from them,” he said. 

Instead of loathing himself for working a job that some might deem routinary, it was as if destiny had Ward him to it to eventually find his purpose in life. One day, he had a conversation with one of the students that changed his life forever. The student simply uttered four words: "You should be a teacher.’"

But at that moment, the words of the student didn’t immediately sink in him. Instead, the exchange between him and the kid made him feel awful at first. He might have felt hopeless at that moment since he knew he could do it but simply didn’t know where to start. But he eventually pushed through with his decision to go back to school. 

“That kinda like hit home for me for a while. And then finally I was like ‘OK, I wanna go back to school,’” he said. 

And so he went on to pursue his studies at the MassBay Community College. But what was more inspiring was he did not just go to college to get a diploma — he actually worked hard and excelled in school. In fact, he was consistently part of the Dean’s list every semester. He was also inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society, MassBay said in a story published on their website. 

To top it all off, Ward finished his degree with a 4.0 GPA, beating the odds and getting his degree while working as a bus driver full time and studying full time at MassBay — even in the middle of a global pandemic. 

In the fall of 2020, Ward went on to study at Framingham State University to pursue his dream of becoming a high school history teacher. 

Indeed, nothing’s impossible if you never stop dreaming!

apost.com

Were you inspired by Clayton Ward’s story? Do you know anyone who shares the same story as him? Let us know your thoughts on this story, and pass this on to your family and friends!