Ronan Homecoming Parade
Missoula art bus conveys alumni in parade
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RONAN — Works of art don’t drive … usually.
And normally they’re not in the form of a 1981 Bluebird school bus.
But on Friday afternoon at the Ronan Homecoming parade, a school bus transformed into a stunning piece of art rolled down Main Street.
“The bus will drive down Main Street,” Ronan alumnus Monte Jenkins, Jr. said the day before the parade. “Ronan doesn’t know what’s about to happen to it.”
A present resident of Missoula, Jenkins designed the bus with the artistic and financial assistance of a few creative friends. On Friday, his goal was to carry the entire graduating class of 2000 on the 45-foot monstrosity.
And he might as well.
The bus, which he refers to as a ‘ship,’ was originally bought for $1,000. And now with over $30,000 invested in the vehicle, it’s fit for a traveling king — and his entire entourage.
Jenkins and his group of friends stripped the bus completely and installed hard wood floors, couches and slots on the ceiling for changeable artwork. The stairs around the back lead to the dance floor that can hold up to 60 people.
But most eye-catching is the paint job on the outside.
Painted the beige color of sand, Jenkins and his friends hired a 16-year-old high school student battling cancer to graffiti the outside.
The brilliant colors stream together to form words like ‘look alive,’ and images that include a green goblin, a cave/sewer formation, and a giant mouth swallowing a bright bouquet of pills.
“This is the stuff of fantasies, and it shows,” Jenkins explained, noting that he’s not sure what his father, Marty Jenkins Sr. thinks of the ostentatious vehicle. “I think he is glad. He might want to live vicariously through me.”
The trek from Missoula to Ronan and down Main Street is not a stretch for the refurbished bus that can reach up to 70 miles per hour on the highway and travels at approximately seven miles to the gallon.
When the cumbersome vehicle lunges into towns on trips to San Francisco or Burning Man, it naturally draws a curious crowd.
“To some people we say that we are a traveling gospel choir,” Jenkins jokes. “Spreading the gospel of heavy bass.”
But for this ex-Ronan Chief on Friday, it was just a curious way to express his orange and black pride and celebrate his homecoming.
And he knows one thing for certain.
“If the apocalypse happens, this thing is absolutely ready,” Jenkins said.
