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Andrew Gaines pushes the accelerator, and his 24-passenger bus cruises across 30th Street, heading west in midtown Omaha.
It's just after 8:20 a.m., and Gaines is starting the busiest part of his morning as a shuttle bus driver for Creighton University students and staff.
He stops at 31st and Davenport Streets and swings the door open
“Good morning, Marcus. Good morning, Jeremiah. Welcome aboard,'' he calls out to students hopping on.
Here's what you learn fast on his bus: No one is an anonymous commuter.
The 59-year-old Gaines knows the names of students and probably their majors and hometowns. He might know whether they have a big test that day, if they've been sick, or if they just received a great internship.
And when Gaines delivers the phrase, “Have a great day,” it isn't a cliché.
He knows the power of words. As he grew up poor on Chicago's Near North Side, his mother and others encouraged him, praised him, told him he would succeed.
Gaines has driven the shuttle for 12 years. He believes that everyone on campus plays a role in helping Creighton's 7,000 students succeed. It doesn't matter whether the employee serves food in the cafeteria, teaches law or medicine or mows the grass — everyone can make a difference.
When he gets to know students, even a little bit, he believes he's helping them feel more a part of the university, more a part of the Creighton community.
Gaines turns the bus south on 31st Street and then west on Davenport, stopping at 35th Avenue.
“Good morning, Molly,'' he says to a student who jumps on.
He looks down the street and spots another student about a half-block away.
“Is that Sara?” he asks.
“Sometimes she walks all the way (to campus),'' Molly tells him.
He's not surprised.
“She's from North Dakota,'' he says to Molly. “This is like summer for her.”
He swings the bus east on California and heads back to campus. He stops at 24th and California Streets, where his route begins and ends, to drop off students and pick up more for the next run.
He pulls away and turns west, driving through campus.
Gaines spots a student he knows, swings the door open and pulls over for a quick hello.
She's a third-year law student from China. He's known her since she started law school, and now she's just a few months from graduating.
“You fired up?” he calls out to her.
Yeah, she says.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
Heading to New York City, she says.
Gaines smiles.
“Keep up the good work,” he says. “I'm proud of you.”
He pulls away and continues his route, stopping to pick up a few more students near 34th and Davenport Streets.
He greets them all with a strong, energetic voice: “Good morning, Lisa. Good morning, Rosie. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, Lucy. Good morning, Alison. Good morning, Sam. Good morning, Brian.”
Coffee isn't his fuel. He doesn't drink it.
Fresh fruits and vegetables energize him. Broccoli, carrots, collard greens, beets, lemons, limes and organic apples.
He walks 3 to 5 miles per day. At 6-feet tall and 170 pounds, he looks trim in his tan corduroys and blue jacket that says “Creighton University Bluejay Shuttle” on the front.
He continues snaking through the Cathedral neighborhood and then turns east on California for the ride back to Creighton. He stops at campus, letting off more than two dozen students, and gets ready for another run.
A student walking by stops and knocks on the bus door.
“How's it going?'' Gaines calls out to him.
It's Zach, a junior from Sacramento, Calif, who recently returned from a volunteer trip to the Dominican Republic.
“How was your experience?” Gaines asks. “What was the highlight?”
I climbed a mountain, Zach tells him.
“Wow, beautiful,'' Gaines tells him. “How long did it take?”
Two days, Zach says.
“Good to see you,'' Gaines calls out.
Gaines shakes Zach's hand, pulls the door closed and heads out on another run.
Gaines knows that young people thrive on encouragement, affirmation and attention.
He grew up in Chicago in the 1960s in the Cabrini-Green housing project, notorious for gangs and violence. He considered it a “cesspool.”
He remembers delivering papers when he was about 12. Two men walked up to him with a gun.
One asked the other, should I kill him? Gaines froze. The other man paused, then said no.
Gaines felt lucky to be alive.
A pastor befriended the young Gaines. He told Gaines that life would get better, that there was a way out. The pastor helped Gaines and another boy put together a performance of a one-act play by writer Malcolm Boyd about a black shoeshine boy who wants a better life. Gaines performed the play at Lutheran summer camps in Illinois and Indiana.
Gaines remembers hearing the applause, and the confidence that gave him.
His mother raised him. She worked 30 years as a mental health specialist at a state hospital in Chicago, earning a college degree in her 40s.
She always emphasized hard work.
“Be the labor great or small,'' she'd tell him. “Do it well or not at all.”
With the help of his pastor, Gaines enrolled in a private high school in suburban Chicago, attended college and worked as a community college counselor.
He moved to Omaha in 1982, started an insurance business and raised his family. He and his former wife have four children and eight grandchildren. Gaines left his insurance career in 1997, partly because he was tired of 60-, 70- and 80-hour weeks.
Driving a shuttle offered a job that was “less complicated,” but one in which he could still help people.
Near 38th and California, not far from St. Cecilia Cathedral, he picks up another group of students.
Matthew Laughlin is there. He's a junior at Creighton, and Gaines knows him and his family. Laughlin's mother, Sharon, worked in human resources at Creighton. Gaines got to know her when he'd go to her office with questions on insurance benefits.
Sharon Laughlin battled breast cancer, and she died in November. Gaines remembers how proud she was of her sons.
When Matthew Laughlin rode the shuttle last fall, Gaines would ask how his mother was doing. Gaines would tell Matthew the family was in his prayers.
Matthew says the conversations made him feel good.
Gaines points the bus back toward campus. The soothing sounds of baroque music fill the shuttle. Gaines plays it because he's seen research that says such music lowers the heart rate and helps people learn.
It's late morning, and Gaines will get a 30-minute break after he drops off this load of students.
As he nears the shuttle stop, he grabs the shuttle's microphone and delivers his regular send-off: “Thank you so much for riding. I wish you the best of luck in all your challenges, including tests, quizzes, lab work, papers and group work.
“Have a great day.”
Contact the writer:
444-1122, michael.oconnor@owh.com
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