Greencastle Schools honors Dan Green
For 36 years, Dan Green made a career of serving the students of Greencastle Community Schools.
He did much of it from the outdated, cramped bus garage property north of downtown — a quonset hut and two pole barns on a piece of property intersected by Vine Street.
So when the opportunity came for GCSC to finally build a new state-of-the-art facility, Green, as operations director, was central to planning the new facility.
And a beautiful facility it is. One building on the property at Veterans Memorial Highway and Tennessee Street houses offices, a break/meeting room and a roomy, well-stocked garage. The other, which Green once called “a football field indoors” is reserved for storage of every single corporation bus.
Unfortunately, Green didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy it. While he did not formally retire until the end of last school year, Green had already been on a leave of absence, fighting the disease that would ultimately take his life.
Dan Green passed away last June 18 at age 60.
In a fitting honor, the Greencastle School Board on Monday approved renaming the transportation center in Green’s honor.
On Tuesday, Green’s widow Brenda, board member Dale Pierce, Transportation Director Kyle Clearwaters and Supt. Jeff Gibboney gathered to formally christen the Dan Green Transportation Center.
Pierce has spent two separate tenures on the school board totaling 32 years and came to consider Green a good friend over that time.
In an effort to show his friend the decision-making process when school is delayed or canceled for snow, Green called Pierce around 4:30 one morning, asking if he’d like to ride along with him.
As the duo rode around the roads of Madison Township — Pierce’s home territory — in a GCSC maintenance truck, they began down a hill. Pierce began to get nervous.
“Dan, you going to stop this thing?” Pierce asked.
“Watch,” Green replied, before lightly dropping the snow blade and bringing the truck to a stop.
Pierce figured out that between himself and Green, they had more than 60 years of service to the corporation.
While the current superintendent never had the opportunity to meet Green, he certainly recognizes the value of longtime employees.
“Anytime you have people that are that committed, it’s a great thing,” Gibboney said.
“My thanks to Brenda for loaning us Dan for all these years,” Pierce said.
Brenda Green, herself a GCSC employee, was no stranger to the hours her husband put in, particularly when it came to planning the new transportation center.
“It was a lot of work to get this done,” she recalled.
As the man now in charge of the new facility, Clearwaters verified what an asset it is to the corporation.
“We had a delivery the other day and the guy said he had been to a lot of transportation center and this was the best he had seen,” Clearwaters said.
It’s a fitting tribute, not only to Green, but also to the men and women who still work from it each day, folks who Pierce believes deserve a little more credit.
“If you happen to see a bus driver around, tell them thanks,” Pierce said, “as well as teachers and our janitors.”