EXPO Preview


‘Makayla’s Story’ General session to share community’s fight to improve safety of school bus stops


WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY | RYAN@STNMEDIA.COM T


here figures to be not a dry eye in the house when Dan Sperry speaks at the STN EXPO this month, including his own. It’s extremely difficult for Sperry, a deputy


in the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho Falls, Idaho, to grow accustomed to talking about his step- daughter and how her life was stolen five years ago at the age of 11 by an illegal school bus passer. To say it stings Sperry and wife Melissa, Makayla


Strahle’s biological mother, is a gross understatement. One fateful evening just before 7 o’clock, just days be- fore Christmas 2011, the actions—or inaction—of one man robbed the Sperrys and their five surviving children of seeing Makayla attend prom, obtain her driver’s license, graduate from high school, or experience any


64 School Transportation News • JULY 2016


number of life’s milestones. As devastating as it is for a parent to lose a child, it is unspeakable to experience the life literally drain from her body. But that’s the reality and memory Dan and Melissa have lived with for the past five years. Tuesday, Dec. 20 started like many winter days in


west-central Wyoming, fog framing a light falling snow. At the time, the family lived near the small town of Crowheart in rural Fremont County. Makayla was in sixth grade at Windriver Elementary School in Pavillion, about 35 miles to the east. Te Fremont County School District #6 bus that Makayla rode each day stopped opposite her home on U.S. 26/287, a two-lane highway with a posted 65 mph speed limit that runs east-bound through Casper and northwest toward Yellowstone


Makayla Strahle was an avid horse lover. This picture was taken months before she was killed by a motorist who illegally passed her school bus. Her stepfather, Dan Sperry, will share details of her life and death, and how both shaped a Wyoming law.


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