Seventy years in the bus business were noted Sept. 26, as the Perham-Dent School Board signed off on another contract with Bauck Bussing.
"My grandfather started the business in 1937," said Kent Zitzow, who attended the meeting with Paul Winterfeldt, partner in the family business.
Zitzow thanked the school board for its patronage over the many decades. He shared with the board a 1950's era folder of business receipts and other papers, compiled by Bill Bauck, which documented the company and the long association with the Perham-Dent School District.
The annual contract with the school has generally been passed with little discussion. But in the school's belt-tightening mode of the new century, this is one of the latest contract agreements--signed in late September for the current 2007-2008 school year, when the contract is usually completed the previous summer.
The school has cut more than $500,000 from its budget over the past six months, and one of the cuts was an entire bus route. The number of routes is down from 19 to 18.
ADVERTISEMENT
This year's bussing contract is almost dead-even with last year's $796,759. Despite the rising cost of doing business, the new contract with Bauck was $797,022.
Such dollar figures would no doubt stun the Baucks of yesteryear--when a new bus could be purchased for the price of a used car, these days.
Over most of its history, Bauck has always bought Chevys for the bus fleet.
Why?
From 1927 to 1987, the Bauck family also owned the local Chevrolet dealership.
