TO THE EDITOR:

When visiting in Minnesota through the years, I never cease to marvel at the fleet of buses that serve the North Branch school system. The school Redite year book of 1941 lists six buses, all privately owned. I rode the Harris bus and may I pay tribute to the memory of a handful that rode with me.

Little did we realize in the last days of that school year we were but months away from World War II. From that group of some thirty town and country kids, four would die in combat and a fifth survive as a Prisoner of War.

Brothers, Russell and Harvey Stark went down over Europe as gunners on the same plane. Keith Elsworth died at sea from wounds, while returning from the Pacific in a hospital ship. Marvin Ryberg went down in the icy waters of Sand Spit coming back from the Korean War. Al Stark survived the loss of his plane as a POW.

Sixty years ago, on the Island of Mindanao, I made a vow that as long as I lived, I would pause for a simple ìthank youî on the sixth day of August and in later years to the memory of those who rode the Harris bus.

Why the sixth day of August? To plagiarize Blacking Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News, you could look it up.

Archie Peers
Krum, Texas

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