Living in Wyoming, long bus rides have become a normal part of school athletics and activities. However, Powell students have become accustomed to bus mishaps.

Flashing police lights surrounding a school bus is not a sight many have witnessed or even think will happen. But this frightening thought became the crude reality of the PHS Speech and Debate team in early March at their State Tournament in Cheyenne.

“A car hit the front of the bus, and none of us saw it coming,” science teacher and guest judge Mrs. Lenita Moore said. “One minute I was sitting in my seat on the left side of the bus and the next minute I was on the right side of the bus in between the seats.”

The car reportedly hit the bus at an intersection in which the stop light malfunctioned and gave a green light to cars coming from both directions. Confused by what had happened, the speech and debate team had to wait in the bus for police and EMTs to arrive on the scene and analyze the accident.

“I didn’t have any more competitions the day after [the car accident], but the emotional stress of the whole thing took a toll on me,” junior Liz Peterson said. “We were disappointed on how the crash was handled from an administrative standpoint though. We felt as if it took a backseat to other activities going on.”

Administrators declined to comment on what happened in the car accident, but they are setting in place new precautionary measures for any future accident that may occur.

“I’m working on a flowchart for protocol based upon what happened at State Speech and Debate,” Activities Director, Scott McKenzie said. “That is going to go into the district handbook. [The Speech and Debate accident] helped spark getting protocol in place. I’ve asked neighboring schools and no one has a written protocol.”

This new protocol will cover anything from a bus breaking down, to coaches or team members sustaining an injury on the bus, to a car accident. It is currently being produced in the form of a flowchart that will be stored on the bus for the driver or passengers to access in an emergency.

Unfortunately, the car accident that the Speech and Debate team experienced has not been the only incident involving Powell’s buses. Nearly one year ago, on April 23, 2022, the PHS boys soccer team encountered a rock slide in the Wind River Canyon on their way home from a game in Pinedale.

“We were driving through the canyon and when we came out of the last tunnel we saw giant rocks everywhere from the rock slide,” junior Chance Franks said. “We all, with the people stopped on the other side, decided to pick up the rocks and move them so that traffic could get through.”

The rockslide across the narrow canyon road left no room for people to drive through and resulted in a line of cars and buses traveling home from the soccer game. The soccer team and coaches made the decision to try to move the rocks since a clean-up crew would not arrive for a while longer.

In what seems like a dangerous situation, the PHS team took every precaution they could to keep people safe.

“We started moving rocks, and we had people watching to make sure that no more rocks would fall,” Franks said. “We were only stopped for about 30 minutes, but I think picking up the rocks was a good team building moment.”

Multiple PHS teams have reported growing closer together due to unexpected circumstances they may find themselves in.

“[The robotics team] was stopped for at least an hour because [the bus broke down] in the canyon, and we didn’t have cell service,” junior Kiyoko Hayano said. “We had to get someone to stop and go get help. A Thermopolis bus came to pick us up.”

Whether a bus breaks down or gets stuck, PHS teams have always been able to work together, and sometimes with other schools, to find a solution.

“It’s kind of concerning to hear about how many of our buses have broken down and the frequency it happens,” Hayano said. “[But, being stuck] was pretty good for bonding throughout the robotics team.”