Full Text of the Excerpt

LEROY CAMPBELL:

I always say that I am the expert in the world, my buses touched seven counties, Rowan, Davie, Yadkin, Wilkes, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, maybe it is just six but…

GOLDIE F. WELLS:

I think Iredell County touches more counties in the State than any other counties. I think it is seven too. It touches so many other counties.

LEROY CAMPBELL:

My buses went to every nitch in there because it was the only Black high school in the county. There was a Black high school in Statesville and one in Mooresville but Iredell County is more than forty miles from north to south. We were lucky with that where we almost had no accidents and several years we would lose only one or two bus drivers for speeding and that was if you got a speeding ticket even off the bus you would still lose your license. We were fortunate enough to get a State citation on transportation. It was a result of the county supervisor of transportation. I didn't know I was ignorant that it wasn't going to work right. It was working right and I thought that was right and he said no, it doesn't work right. He came to me and said you know this needs to be on the record there has only been one new bus assigned to the Black school in the history of this county. He told me that. You are brand new and I'm going to pretend that I am new, every year you'll get your quota of new buses or more as long as I am supervisor and I did. My routes were longer than anyone else. But I had second-hand buses. We had excellent transportation supervisors even the person who succeeded him was an excellent supervisor.