Woodland Public Schools recognizes longtime bus mechanic

WOODLAND — Bob Lute, shop supervisor and head mechanic for KWRL bus transportation cooperative for 42 years, announced his retirement this year. Woodland Public Schools recently recognized him for his service. “Shop supervisors field calls from buses late at night traveling home from sporting events which need assistance out on the highway,” Shannon Barnett, director of KWRL Cooperative, said in a news release. “Many nights, Bob has been rousted out of bed to help school buses get their students home when they experience mechanical difficulty on the road.” Lute was known for regularly helping out during unexpected weather events that impacted school transportation operations. “Bob has been here as long as the cooperative agreement has been in place,” Barnett said in the release. “In fact, he was the one who scraped the old district names off the buses and replaced them with the first KWRL logos when the cooperative was formed over 40 years ago.”