Reminisces of Yellowstone Park tour bus driver by Brenda McDonald They were the ultimate testament to luxury in the wilderness, sleek bodied, roomy and decked out in eye-popping canary yellow. The 14-passenger Yellowstone Park tour buses stood as icons through decades of service as tourist transport within the park. So lasting was their mystique that a one-month tour as a driver left an indelible impression on MSU alum Tom Hawksworth, '47 'IE. It was the Depression, and jobs were hard to come by. Fresh off of work on a railroad section gang, Hawksworth struck gold the third time he tested for the coveted job of Yellowstone Park tour bus driver. "What I hadn't been told the other two times I tested was that you had to be 21 to get the job," he said. The testers would come to Bozeman every spring and load up one of the tour buses with applicants. "The drivers would then have to drive up and down the MSU campus," Hawksworth said. "To provide leverage with no power steering, the bus had a steering wheel about the size of a wagon wheel." "Shifting those spur-geared transmissions was a big thing, getting the double-clutching right was important in order to use the engine as a brake on downgrades," he said. "Out in the park, if you didn't hit the gears right you could have a runaway because the brakes alone might not provide enough hold-back." The summer of 1940 brought Hawksworth's lucky break; he was selected as a tour bus driver. But he had to attend Heavy Weapons School at Ft. Douglas in Salt Lake City in June so he couldn't report for tour bus duty until July. To compound matters, he was ordered to active Army duty effective Aug. 1, so his dream job lasted for only 31 days. That was enough to make memories of a lifetime. Dressed in a dark green uniform, Hawksworth took his first load of passengers from the train station to Mammoth Hot Springs. He loved the layout of the buses. "They had curbside doors so people could slide into the seats," he said. Because so many passengers arrived at once in the train stations in the gateway towns near the park, the tour buses would convoy to their destination. It would take four or five hours to get the passengers to their hotels because of the stops to sightsee along the way. "We'd give the tourists the full treatment and stop to look at bears," he said. Once the passengers were deposited, the true fun began. The bus drivers were akin to Gypsies because they traveled with their personal possessions including a sleeping bag. They stayed each night at whichever park location they had been dispatched to. Rarely would they stay two nights in the same place. Once Hawksworth finished his run for the day and made sure that his bus was in tip-top shape, he would head to the employee mess hall. "The food was fantastic," he said. "We had big heaping platters of food. The cooks were such motherly ladies, and they looked after you like family." When evening came, it was a great time for employees and guests alike. "Dance bands played at the lodges, and we had a great time," Hawksworth said. "It was such a festive place--there were college kids from all over the country." Hawksworth and his beloved Yellowstone Park bus No. 378 crossed paths again in 1960 when he found the bus for sale on a used car lot in Livingston. "It was in perfect condition, so I couldn't resist buying it for $500," he said. But insurance costs soon proved too costly and he sold the bus. A local Ford dealer now uses it at his summer cabin near West Yellowstone.