Forest Hills — Jered Zank recalled opening the door of Bus No. 28 when two students boarded and immediately asked him to autograph the books they were clutching.
“They came and said, ‘Guess what we got for Easter?’” Zank said. “And I was like, ‘Candy?’ They said, ‘No,’ and then showed me the books,” he added with a laugh.
Zank, who has been driving a bus for Forest Hills for about five years, is the self-published author of three books: “The Ruffest Day,” “Harlow Saves a Bumblebee” and “Hudson and the Frog.”
“There’s a lot of people, especially with cell phones, who go through life on their phones or with tunnel vision,” he explained. “When you’re aware of your surroundings, you see things other people miss. Sometimes that’s where I get ideas for stories — and from my grandpa, who was a storyteller.”
Once Upon A Time
Zank said his journey to Ada Township — and to becoming an author — is a story in itself.
After graduating from high school in Greenville he joined the Army, where he would serve for 12 years. He met his wife-to-be, Sheila, during his last tour in Iraq.
The couple eventually moved to the Wyoming area and started a family.
One day his then 3-year-old daughter, Harlow — now a sixth-grader at Goodwillie Environmental School — was struggling, so “I was trying to explain to her that sometimes bad things lead to good things, and I ended up coming up with a story,” he said.
His wife thought he should write it down, and that opened a floodgate.
“(Harlow) had a lot of great books and loved them, but we had read them so many times that I thought, ‘I’ve got to start coming up with stories for her,’” he recalled. “A lot of the stories came from experiences I had, or things I noticed and turned into a story, and it kind of went from there.”
Zank discovered self-publishing through Amazon and connected with one of his wife’s co-workers, Allison Odren, a nurse who also was an illustrator. The story he told his daughter became “The Ruffest Day,” about a puppy searching for its forever home and ultimately finding it after helping a little girl.
“For five months it was an Amazon best-seller, right behind Scooby-Doo, Bluey and Pig the Pug,” he said.
‘His joy for writing is contagious.’
— Ada Elementary Principal Melanie Hoeksema
The Plot Grows
His next book, “Harlow Saves a Bumblebee,” was inspired by his daughter’s efforts to save a bumblebee while pretending to be a warrior princess.
Zank said he intentionally designed the princess to defy stereotypes, dressing her not in elaborate gowns but in practical clothing, including a quiver of arrows on her back. He added that he thinks that is why the book has become his best seller.
His third book, “Hudson and the Frog,” is based on the true story of his son rescuing a frog and learning the importance of letting wildlife remain in the wild.
So how did the author become a bus driver?
When the family moved to Ada five years ago, Zank recognized the district’s need for them.
“It has been one of the most fulfilling jobs I’ve had in a very long time, and I’ve done a lot of things,” he said. “I hear people say, ‘I could never be a bus driver,’ but it’s not that hard. You put a little effort into the kids, and it’s amazing.”
Zank said he sometimes feels like a local celebrity, as students stop to say hello or share stories when they see him in the community.
“I had a group of kids last Halloween whose parents told me they weren’t interested in candy; they just wanted to see if they could find Mr. Zank.”
Keep Reading, More to Come
Between his morning and afternoon routes for Forest Hills Central and Ada Elementary, Zank also has visited schools in the Greenville area — where Zank is from — to talk to students about the writing process. In March, for National Reading Month, he shared his love of writing with students at Ada Elementary.
Ada Elementary Principal Melanie Hoeksema said “Mr. Zank’s Tank” — the nickname for the bus Zank drives — is legendary among students at the school, and that they were excited to have him come to the school and share his craft.
Zank spent the day reading his books and co-creating stories with students, where each student had the opportunity to add a line to the story.
“His joy for writing is contagious, and kids loved every minute of his visit,” Hoeksema said.
Zank has many more stories to tell. His next book will focus on helping make riding the school bus less intimidating for first-time riders.
“Forest Hills started doing Young Fives, and right away, I know a lot of young five kids are terrified of the bus,” he said. “I was trying to think of something I could do when they get on, to help them be calm or to reassure them or comfort them.”
Zank said he understands that fear; a bus can feel big, loud and unfamiliar. His goal is to reflect that in a book and help students understand that “just like the bus travels down the road, as you go farther, it gets less and less scary.”
The inspiration for that book came from the two students who asked for his autograph after Easter.
“I asked them, ‘What was the worst part about getting on the bus?’” he said. “They said, ‘You were scary.’
“Now those same kids, when they get off, give me a hug and say, ‘Love you, Mr. Zank.’”
Read more from Forest Hills:
• Early mornings, plenty of stickers: the life of a bus driver
• Bus tracking app keeps families in the loop
