Schoolteacher Mary Ludwig gets goose bumps when she remembers the first time she met bus driver Kevin McKay. “I said, ‘Who the heck are you?’” she says via Zoom. “’Cause I knew all the bus drivers from field trips. He’s like, ‘I’m Kevin McKay.’ I said, ‘You’d better be good!’”
The pair were setting off on a terrifying, five-hour journey with nearly two dozen elementary school students as the Camp fire engulfed Paradise, California, in 2018. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. “That day I met a stranger and put my complete trust in that stranger and today we’re very close, lifelong friends,” Ludwig adds.
