Driver trades rig for a school bus

Cedar Hill—For 40 years, Cedar Hill citizen Larry Jemison drove large trucks up and down the highway.

First, he went coast to coast, and then, just around the vast freeways of southern California where he spent most of his adulthood.

Jemison moved to Cedar Hill from Moreno Valley, CA, in 2020 and retired. But complete retirement didn’t agree with him.

“I was sitting around the house and would go for a walk, then come back,” Jemison said.

Getting behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler wasn’t appealing to Jemison, but he soon learned of another opportunity.

“I could drive a school bus in Cedar Hill ISD; work three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon,” said Jemison, who became a CHISD bus driver in January.

Jemison drives the bus for Special Needs scholars and finds the experience to be very rewarding.

Jonquez Moore, CHISD director of transportation, said he’s grateful that Jemison joined CHISD Transportation.

“He has a positive attitude, and he’s eager to learn,” Moore said. “You see him smiling and saying ‘good morning’ and ‘how are you?’ every day.”

Jemison was born and raised in Sawyerville, AL, south of Tuscaloosa. He met and married his wife there just after they graduated from high school, but the couple wanted to head out west for opportunities.

Jemison had an older brother living in southern California, and together, they partnered to purchase a truck.

The hours and days were long. The Jemisons would be on the road for two weeks at a time with maybe three days of rest upon return. That was just enough for Jemison to catch up on rest, and he wasn’t able to spend a lot of time with his family.

So, Jemison decided to work for a company doing regional routes in southern California.

He officially retired from trucking in 2017, but company leaders convinced him to keep going until 2020.

For years, one of Jemison’s nephews tried to convince him to move to Texas. He now lives in Cedar Hill with his wife, son and two grandchildren. It’s closer to his Alabama roots where his family still owns some countryside property.

SOURCE Cedar Hill ISD