As students return to school this week, we'll be seeing a lot more buses on the road. Nearly 90,000 registered riders across 564 routes (seven more than last year in support of four new schools) in Wake County Public Schools (WCPS) will get on and off buses painted the same color as more than the nearly 300 buses transporting nearly 18,000 Durham students.

These busses and the rest of the nearly half million nationwide share one unmistakable feature: their orangey-yellow paint. But where did that color come from?

National School Bus Glossy Yellow was chosen at a 1939 conference of school transportation organized by Dr. Frank W. Cyr, an education professor at Columbia University specializing in the unique needs of rural schools.

School children were being transported in an variety of wag

See Full Page