STALWART VIROQUA SCHOOL bus driver Duane Hoff didn’t take retirement years ago when he could have. He even asked to continue beyond the end of school in June, the usual date for retirees, so he could finish with one of his favorite runs: the VAS fishing class. Three weeks of driving a busload of happy kids to area streams and reservoirs capped Hoff’s 42 years nicely. “The Viroqua schools have been good to drive for. And Daryl [Skrupky] and Pete [Amrhein] are doing a fabulous job. They are teaching all those kids to fish, everything from putting a worm on the hook to showing them how to clean their catch.”

Hoff can’t seem to talk about his work without praising others, from the school district—“They were good to me and took good care of the buses”—to his employees, who made it possible for him to drive kids to school: “I had a couple of real good hired men, and they did a good job for me.” That’s right, this is the same Hoff who ran the Mobil service station on Main Street in Viroqua from 1959 through 1997—and he started driving school buses in 1968.

“Some days were hectic, when we had repairs to finish or a tire sale going on, but those men were with me a long time and were dependable. One was with me 35 years, and the other for 23,” he says.

“I drove one and a half hours in the morning, and one and a half in the afternoon. But I had most of the summer off,” Hoff remembers. “After I sold the station, I had a noon kindergarten run so I drove three times a day.”

The fishing class let Hoff know how much they appreciated him at their lunch break on June 24. They presented him with a large cake and a collection of photos featuring the kids he drove, the fish they caught, and a smiling Duane at the wheel of the bus. Teachers and fellow VAS employees came outside to give him a hug, congratulate him—and have a piece of that cake with some lemonade.

Now that retirement is here, Hoff is looking forward to a little more time to take care of the house and the family farm, and especially to visiting his daughter in Hollywood, where his 11-year-old granddaughter lives.

—Jerry McIntire