Bright and early on the morning of January 6, barely a quarter past seven, junior Jason Locke stood nervously in the commons among his fellow DECA members. Their Area conference started at nine, and they needed to be on time. A bus had been scheduled two weeks in advance and was expected to arrive at 7:30 that morning. At 7:20 a.m., DECA received the dreaded phone call: there was an issue with the buses, and theirs was going to be late. 

Locke grew more anxious as the clock ticked on. DECA’s Area conference was held at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, which is roughly ten miles away from Liberty and about a thirty-minute drive. It wasn’t until 8:50 a.m. that the bus finally showed up. Those scheduled for 9:00 a.m. events simply were not going to make it. 

“I saw some people on the verge of tears because they were going to be late to their events,” Locke said. “Once we got there, people were literally running to try to make it to their events on time.”

Yet things ended up working out, and everyone was able to compete. DECA’s advisor Chris Gapinski, more commonly known as G, was able to reschedule those who missed their morning events to a later time. 

“Even though G was able to reschedule people, there was still so much chaos,” Locke said. “It’s frustrating because we were fully prepared, and we scheduled a bus in advance, but this is something we had no control over.” 

DECA’s experience is not unique, and sadly for the other sports and clubs that have run into transportation issues, having no bus means their event is canceled altogether. 

Later that afternoon on January 6, junior Nicholas Grabowski left school just before his fourth period class to drive himself to his swim meet at Julius Boehm Pool in Issaquah. When Grabowski arrived at the pool, there was nobody in sight. There wasn’t a bus to transport the rest of the swimmers, so the meet had been canceled, leaving Grabowski alone at the pool.

“Since I drove myself, I had no idea that the meet was canceled,” Grabowski said. “I missed class for no reason.” 

Grabowski is not the only one who has found himself in this predicament. Back on September 29, Liberty’s cross country team was scheduled to attend a meet in Kirkland, and all runners had to take the bus. Sitting at lunch, less than an hour before the team was supposed to leave, junior Thomas Dawson was met with the same bad news as Grabowski. No bus was available, and his meet had also been canceled. 

“Cross country is my escape from reality,” Dawson said. “But instead of an escape, the district left me to bear the walk of shame when I had to return to Dr. Stephens’ classroom.”

DECA, swim, and cross country might all be very different activities, but there are two things that Locke, Grabowski, and Dawson all have in common: a love for their extracurricular and a fear of missing out on what they love just because a bus bails on them.