Perrin Turney started driving the big yellow school bus in the teensy Humboldt County mountain town of Kneeland when he was just 19.
He’s 24 now, wizened by five years of steering the Bluebird 34-seater up steep, twisting roads, through snow storms, over ice and through the North Coast’s ever-present fog. In April, the California Department of Education named him the state’s transportation services employee of the year.
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Turney’s honor is huge news in Kneeland, an unincorporated community that consists of an elementary school, a rural fire station and a clutch of homes in the forest.
“Everybody I’ve ever talked to in my whole life has been reaching out,” Perrin told me with a laugh, adding that he’s a low-key guy who’s a little awkward when it comes to accepting compliments.
Low enrollment has long put Kneeland’s school at risk
I first met Perrin and his boss, Greta Turney — the Kneeland Elementary School superintendent, principal and sixth-through-eighth-grade teacher, as well as Perrin’s mom — in 2022. I was writing about how the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly saved the school, one of California’s smallest.
In 2020, Kneeland Elementary was on the verge of closure because enrollment had dropped to 12 students. During the pandemic, it was allowed to quickly reopen for in-person learning because the tiny student body had lots of space to spread out on the grassy 2.5-acre campus.
It became a refuge for kids from bigger towns who struggled with online learning. By 2022, enrollment had nearly tripled, to 33 students. The school got more funding, hired a new teacher and built a new classroom — a bright spot amid the state’s steep decline in public school enrollment.
A student waves as the school bus leaves Kneeland Elementary School in August 2022.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Today, Kneeland has 25 students in transitional kindergarten through eighth grade. Perrin buses more than half to class. State funding is tied to average daily attendance, and without that bus, the school likely would lose so many students that it would again be at risk of closure, Greta said.
“We would go under if we weren’t able to get those kids to school,” she said.
Perrin’s contributions go beyond his bus-driving heroics
A slender young man with a mop of curly brown hair, Perrin is a math whiz who graduated high school in Arcata at 16 and has been working at Kneeland Elementary ever since. He started as a custodian and planned to keep working at the school for a year or so while he studied math at College of the Redwoods. But he keeps sticking around because he adores the kids, and they adore him right back.
Greta told me in 2022 that Perrin is mature beyond his years because he has overcome a lot. He was born with single suture sagittal craniosynostosis — a condition in which skull bones fuse too early in infancy, potentially causing problems with brain growth — and had six major surgeries by age 10.
Perrin now wakes at 5 a.m. each day and is at the bus yard by 6:50 a.m., he said. His hourlong route up the narrow mountain roads includes hairpin turns and no room for error.
“I know all the blind corners, and I know where you can look through the trees to see if there’s oncoming traffic,” he said.
He takes the route slowly, even when impatient drivers ride his bumper. When the roads get too dangerous in the winter, he personally makes the call to cancel class.
A few years ago, he was driving uphill when the front tires hit ice and the bus started to spin. A jokester in the back seat called out: We’re not facing the right direction!
“I remember … looking at all those kids and thinking, ‘if your training’s going to kick in, it’s got to kick in right now,’” Perrin said. “I turned the wheel exactly how I was taught to turn it, and luckily, we ended up perfectly fine.”
He always stays calm, he said. If he’s calm, the kids are calm.
Like everyone at the school, Perrin “wears many hats,” as they say. He is a math teaching aide as well as a certified water operator who does all the treatments for the school’s water system. He recently created a “Maker’s Space” where the students do 3D printing, laser engraving, cardboard table saw cutting and sewing.
Greta said that when Perrin learned about his big award, he sent a screenshot of the announcement to the text chain that includes every school staffer — all eight of them.
“The mom in me is just bursting,” she said. “As his boss? I’m still super, super proud.”
Today’s top stories 
A pedestrian walks past photographs of Iranians killed along Westwood Boulevard, in Los Angeles, recently. The Iranian community in Los Angeles has been affected by recent arrests of several families.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Inside the arrests of several L.A. IraniansAs the war in Iran continues, the U.S. State Department has detained five L.A. area-based Iranian nationals — all of whom are green card holders — and moved to strip them of their residency.The arrests have exposed a rift in the Iranian American community, which has grown increasingly polarized in recent years, leading to online smear campaigns and at times violence. The D.C. gala shootingLucas Museum unveils inaugural exhibitionsThe Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens Sept. 22 with about 20 inaugural exhibitions curated by George Lucas, spanning more than 30 galleries in Exposition Park.Despite expectations, only one exhibition focuses on “Star Wars”; the $1-billion collection celebrates diverse narrative art including comics, manga, children’s books and paintings.What else is going on
Commentary and opinions
This morning’s must-readAnother great readFor your downtime 
The 2026 Pasadena Showcase House of Design at the Baldwin Oaks Estate in Arcadia.
(Peter Christiansen Valli / For the Times)
Going outStaying inQuestion of the day: What’s your favorite California-themed book?
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally … the photo of the day 
Darth Vader landed at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on Wednesday.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Today’s great photo is from Times feature columnist Todd Martens at Disneyland, where Darth Vader set foot in the park’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, Fast Break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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