Surnames: Wiedenhoeft, Pauls

----Sources: Scrap book one: by Elsa Lange Hardrath & Dorthaleen Edwards Hardrath

Contributed by Halbert "Bud" Hardrath

UNITY BUS DRIVER ROLLS UP 250,000 MILES - A perfect safety record for 250,000 miles of school bus driving is the commendable accomplishment of Albert Wiendenhoeft, Unity, who rounded out 14 years of service to the Colby Union Free High School District today. Wiedenhoeft says he didn’t even want to think about retirement.

Unity Drive of School Bus Going Strong at 71

UNITY, WIS. - In a day and age when many aspire to retire at 65, Albert Wiedenhoeft of Unity is still driving a school bus at the age of 71 and doesn’t even want to think about retirement.

Wiedenhoeft has been driving bus for the Colby Union Free High School District since 1941. His traffic record for 250,000 miles of school bus driving for the past 14 years is free of blemish. His eyesight still is excellent, requiring glasses only for reading, and he exercises the vigor of a man of far lesser age.

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For the past several years he has been transporting more than 40 Colby school students living in the northwest section of the district. His present route calls for 56 miles of travel each school day, and today marks his final trip of the current school year.

In earlier years Wiedenhoeft traveled a western route on Highway K, covering 85 miles each day. For two years he drove a bus that services Marathon county sections of the Colby School District. The bus he drives now is the third he has piloted in his 14 years of service. He drove the first bus a total of 130,000 miles, the second, 100,000 miles, and has driven the present bus 20,000 miles.

During 14 years of driving, Wiedenhoeft says there were only a few occasions when snow-blocked roads made it impossible for him to cover his route. The going sometimes was made difficult by drifts, necessitating delays and shoveling to clear stretches of the road, but such obstacles did not prevent him from completing his trips. Sickness during 14 years of bus driving has kept him from duty less than two weeks.

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Wiedenhoeft was born in Dodge County, near Fond du Lac, April 3, 1884, and moved to Colby in 1889. In his earlier years he farmed near Colby. Three years ago he and Mrs. Wiedendhoeft moved to a home in Unity.

One of their sons, Gilbert, is a Unity storekeeper. The other, Arthur, is a garage mechanic at Colby. A daughter, Mrs. Fred Pauls lives at Schofield. The Wiedenhoefts also have four grandchildren.

Additional notes in margin

– Father-in-law of Edythe Hardrath Wiedenhoeft.