Karen Wills graduated from Byron High School in 1966 when the world was alive with the music of The Supremes, The Four Tops, and the Dave Clark Five. She remembers it fondly—the days of Bandstand, the soundtrack of a generation. What she didn’t know then was that her life’s melody would be set right here in Byron, not just as a student but as a steady, smiling presence for generations of kids who would board her school bus.

It all started with a simple suggestion. One spring afternoon in the mid-1970s, as Karen waited at the end of her long country lane for her son Mike to step off the bus, the driver, Sarge Radatz, leaned out of the door and called, “Why don’t you be a bus driver?” What might have sounded casual to some became a turning point for Karen. With all three of her children in school, the timing felt right. She took the classes, got her license, and climbed into the driver’s seat of a Byron school bus—a seat she would occupy for more than four decades.

Through the years, Karen ferried her own children to school, sports, and activities. She also raised her youngest, Andy, who today serves as principal at Byron High School. Her other children carried forward the family’s legacy of hard work and service: one daughter became a bus monitor and cafeteria worker, another a longtime professor at Rock Valley, and her son Mike an insurance agent known for his willingness to lend a hand. “They’re all hard workers,” Karen said with pride. “They had chores to do growing up, and it shows.”

Driving a bus might look simple from the outside, but Karen will tell you it requires nerves of steel and a heart full of patience. The early years meant battling with stick-shift buses that fogged up so badly she sometimes had to climb out to scrape her windshield clear by hand. Later years brought radios and, eventually, cell phones, but there were still moments that tested her resolve. One icy afternoon stands out in memory: school let out early due to a storm, and Karen’s bus slid backward down a country hill, edging toward the ditch before finally coming to rest. With kids on board, she waited hours for a salt truck to arrive, the driver climbing into his hopper with a shovel to give her enough traction to finish her route. “That was probably the scariest I ever rode in,” she recalled. Yet she never wavered from her commitment to getting kids home safely.

Safety was always her first priority, but right behind it came something less tangible yet equally important: kindness. Every child who stepped onto Karen’s bus heard the same greeting—“Good morning” or “How are you doing?”—and every child who stepped off heard, “Have a good day, see you later.” Sometimes the replies were little more than grunts, but that didn’t matter. “They heard you,” she said. “You don’t know what kind of day they’ve had or what kind of night they’ve had.” That philosophy, once reinforced by a previous superintendent, Mr. Bill Young, became her guiding star.

It wasn’t just the kids who left an impression on Karen—colleagues did too. She still remembers Sarge, the man who gave her that first nudge, and the bosses who followed him. Today, she credits Barb and Britt, who lead the bus garage, for maintaining a strong team and building on the legacy she helped shape. “They do a great job,” Karen said. “There are a lot of good people here.”

Beyond the bus routes and the storms and the decades of school days, Karen’s story is about more than miles driven. It’s about the relationships built along the way. She still runs into former riders who remember her with a smile. “I’ve had a lot of good relationships,” she said, “and I still do with some of them.” Those connections, fleeting as they may have seemed in the moment, became part of the fabric of Byron’s community.

Now, after more than 45 years on the job, Karen still helps out, driving for games and filling in on small routes. There’s no urgency for her to stop. For someone who’s lived through the growth of Byron, from ComEd’s construction to the changes in its schools, it feels natural to keep giving back. “I’m very blessed,” she said simply. “The years just go by so fast.”

Generations of Byron students can remember Karen’s steady hand at the wheel and her cheerful greetings at the door of the bus. Behind the wheel, she kept them safe. Beyond the wheel, she reminded them daily of what it means to be seen, cared for, and welcomed. And in Byron, that’s a legacy as enduring as any song on the radio.