SCHOOL BUS CRASH REPORTS 2004

Fairfield Co. Elementary School Working To Cope With Deadly Bus Crash
October 8, 2004

(Winnsboro) Oct. 8, 2004 - Some 45 students from McCorey-Liston Elementary School in Fairfield County were taken to Midlands hospitals Thursday, most with minor injuries, after the South Carolina Highway Patrol says a 10-wheel truck ran a stop sign and collided with a school bus.

The worst school bus accident Fairfield County has ever seen injured more than 40 children and killed the bus driver, 34-year-old Sophia "Dante" Woodard.

Now the Fairfield County School District is focused on helping its students cope.

Superintendent Clarence Willie says, "We were at school this morning when all the students arrived, and we set up an assembly, and myself along with the school board chair and a parent and a minister greeted them, and we offered words of encouragement."

Superintendent Willie says he asked for monitors to ride the school buses Friday morning and afternoon, "We also assembled a group of counselors from other schools to go out to McCorey-Liston to assist their counselors in working with students who the teachers felt needed the counseling services." Willie says area ministers have also volunteered to help.

Principal Mary-Ashley Livingston says Dante first concern was always the kids, "She always thought about the safety of her children. On that bus it was the safety of those children, always."

By midday, the superintendent said the day had gone very well in terms of helping the students deal with the accident, "The children are very resilient, and their spirit today is just simply awesome in light of this terrible tragedy."

This is the first time in eight years someone has died on a South Carolina bus. The State Department of Education says only six people have died in bus accidents in the entire history of the Palmetto State bus program.

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