Wolfe County receives first electric school bus in the state

WOLFE COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - Wolfe County Schools is the first school district in the commonwealth to receive an electric bus for their bus routes.

The first bus was delivered to them Monday with three more electric buses joining their bus routes in October.

Wolfe County Schools applied for and received two different grants to get them buses in their school system. The school system now has 31 buses including their new electric bus.

One of the grants they received allowed them to pay the price of a diesel school bus and the grant covered the remainder of the cost for the electric bus.

The other grant they received allotted them three additional buses at no cost to the school district.

“A little over a year ago we knew the new grants, federal grants came out for this opportunity and we started working with our partners to get our grant application ready,” said Kenny Bell, Wolfe County Superintendent. “We knew this was something we wanted to look at, but after a lot of research we knew it was the right fit for our community.”

The bus can hold 66 passengers and travel for 138 miles before needing to be charged, the Superintendent said none of their routes are nearly that long.

The bus was manufactured by Thomas and sold to the district through Boyd. The vehicles are named Jouley as a play on words because a Joule is a measure of energy.

Transportation Director John Halsey has been working in the district for 23 years and said this is great for Wolfe County.

“I would’ve never thought that Wolfe County would’ve been the first electric bus in the state,” said Halsey. “There was a lot of hard work, we’ve been at this for about a year ad a half two years, but we finally made it with the help of a lot of people.”

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