Longtime crossing guard ushers buses through intersection

WALTON, Ind. (AP) - Don Foreman stood at the intersection of U.S. 35 and Ind. 218 the afternoon of March 23 in his bright yellow vest holding a stop sign, pausing traffic and allowing for a stream of school buses to pass through.

It's what he's been doing just about every school-day afternoon since the early 2000s. The 83-year-old dons the vest and wields the sign out of a desire to stay busy and ensure students from Lewis Cass Jr.-Sr. High School and Thompson Elementary School get home safely and promptly.

"What I like is getting the kids out safe and getting the buses on their way out so they don't have to stop and wait to get out," he said. "That's why I do it."

That motivation persists even when the weather isn't hospitable.

"There's days it's blowing so hard I can barely stand up there," Foreman said. "There's days it's raining all over me, snowing, then I got the beautiful summer where it's warm and nice."

John Bevan, who was superintendent of Southeastern School Corp. until 2013, recalled the difficulties that resulted when about 12 school buses hit the road at one time at the end of every school day. He said it often led to delays as buses attempted to navigate the highway intersection, which only has stop signs for traffic on Ind. 218.

Foreman sat in his red pickup truck parked off of Ind. 218 Thursday, keeping a weather eye on the time a nearby digital bank sign displayed. While he waited, he remembered observing the crossing with Bevan at the end of a school day and it taking 18 minutes for all the buses to make it through.

An attempt to get stop signs added for traffic on U.S. 35 failed, Bevan recalled.

"The next best thing was to get the state to allow us to declare that as a crossing for the kids," Bevan said. "Then Don was good enough to fulfill the role as crossing guard for really as long as I was there."

Foreman in the intersection cuts the former 18-minute wait down to about 3 minutes or less.

Bevan praised Foreman's performance in the position.

"I enjoyed thoroughly my relationship with him and I knew he took the assignment seriously and I never had to worry about it," Bevan said. "He was a man of his word. If he said he'd take care of it, then he'd take care of it."

That appreciation is shared by school corporation staff to this day, according to Sheri Herd, director of transportation for the corporation.

"It just makes it so much easier on the lives of the drivers," she said of the service Foreman provides. "...He's truly appreciated by the drivers and myself."

Foreman recalled one school bus stopping in the intersection on the last day of classes before winter break this school year, much to his confusion. Then a girl hopped off the bus and handed him a package.

"She said, 'This is for you!'" he said.

After opening it, he found a wool hat and pair of mittens. When school was back in session, along with his stop sign he held a handmade sign expressing his thanks for the gift.

Local drivers have grown accustomed to his presence by now, Foreman said.

"Through traffic that's never been through here before - that's what I got to watch out for," he said.

Foreman's relationship with Southeastern School Corp. began when he took a position as a custodian at Thompson Elementary School following his retirement from John Deere in Logansport.

"I couldn't sit still, I had to have something to do," he said.

He continued serving as crossing guard after retiring from the school in 2006. Calling himself an outside person, he said he also mows a lot of lawns around Walton.

He and his wife, Jayne, grew up in southern Indiana before employment took them to Indianapolis, Logansport and Walton. They raised a daughter and five sons and have multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

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Source: (Logansport) Pharos-Tribune, http://bit.ly/2naetc6

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Information from: Pharos-Tribune, http://www.pharostribune.com