Pierce parks bus for final time

11:44 a.m. May 28, 2025

DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor

After 23 years behind the wheel, Pam Pierce is stepping down from her big yellow bus – but not without looking back with gratitude, laughter, and tears.

A Moore County native, Pam has spent nearly a quarter-century winding along rural roads, picking up and dropping off generations of students – many of whom she still thinks about daily.

“They were all like my children,” she says. “Just like a mama worries about her own, I’d worry about mine. Were they going to have enough to eat? Was someone going to be home to meet them?”

Driving a school bus was not just a job – not to Pam. It was a calling that came with responsibility, love, and legacy. Pam’s mother, Imogene Waid, drove a school bus in Moore County for 25 years. After passing away in 2001, Pam wondered if she could carry on what her mother had started.

“I kept thinking, Mama’s up there just dying laughing at me trying to back this thing up,” she jokes. “But I did it. And I stayed.”

Mother and daughter have safely carried two generations of Moore County’s children to school and back.

Pam’s career began in 2002, and with it came early mornings, long afternoons, and decades of memories. There were the milestones she watched from her driver’s seat: kindergartners turning into graduates, siblings following in each other’s footsteps, and students growing up and having kids of their own.

“That’s the hard part about leaving,” she says.

And yet, Pam never saw herself as just a driver. She was a protector, a familiar face, a firm voice when needed, and a soft place to land for so many kids who may not have had one elsewhere. “Do you want me to call your mama?” she’d warn with a smile – a phrase many local parents and kids still laugh about today.

Her days started before the sun rose. Up by 5:30 a.m. and out on the road by 6:20, Pam covered the Lois Ridge route – an area she knew well from having lived there for years with her husband, Stanley, before he passed away in 2021. Together, they raised Erin, who is continuing her mom’s legacy of service, working hard to preserve local history, like the Hurdlow School project.

“Everybody knew Stanley,” she says, smiling. “He was a cut-up – always making people laugh.”

Though she won’t miss the early wake-up calls, Pam admits she’ll miss the bus dearly – especially the children. “I had one little girl just cry when I told her I was retiring. That just broke me,” she says. “They’re good kids. I’ve been blessed.”

Her coworkers surprised her on her last day with food and cake. “I walked in and said, ‘For me?’” she laughs. “They’re good people. It’s a family here. We understand what each other goes through.”

Pam has seen it all: the shift from no cameras to complete camera systems, the ups and downs of mechanical issues, and even a few fender benders. Through it all, she found support from her bosses and grace in the little victories – the greatest of which was every day ending safely.

“When that last child steps off that bus, you just say, ‘Thank you, Lord.’ Every single time.”

Pam Pierce may be retiring from the driver’s seat, but the imprint she leaves behind – on the hearts of students, coworkers, and a grateful community – is permanent. Moore County runs on small-town values; few have embodied them better than Pam.

She says, “They saw me every morning, and I saw them. And I’ll never forget a single one.”