Tina Wallace: A Woman of Love and Faith

Tina Wallace: A Woman of Love and Faith

By Tameshia Warner

For Tina Wallace, the most beautiful sounds of all are the giggles of children of all ages as she drives a bus for three different Loudoun County schools and for The Hill School’s Team Saturday program.

A Middleburg native, she’s one of 12 children who grew up in the little yellow house near the fire department on Windy Hill, the daughter of Andrew and Catherine Robinson. She attended Middleburg Elementary, Loudoun Valley High School and NOVA, where she studied to be a paralegal and earned a two-year associate’s degree.

She was working in that field when a friend told her that Loudoun was looking for school bus drivers. She was intrigued, studied to become fully licensed and has been driving the bus ever since for the last 17 years. Tina also has two adult children of her own—Shaneka Robinson and Marcus Wallace—four grandchildren and a god-daughter.

Her day starts at 4 a.m. and she’s out the door at her home in St. Louis and on the bus by 5:15 every morning. She drives students to and from nearby Banneker Elementary, Blue Ridge Middle School and Loudoun Valley High—four hours in the morning, four in the afternoon and occasionally two hours mid-day for special needs children.

“I love driving the bus, especially my kindergarteners,” said Tina, 61. “I’ve had the funniest times with them. One time I was off for about two or three days and when I came back, one of my kindergarten girls said, ‘Mrs. Tina, did you take a bath?’ I asked her, ‘Why? Do I smell?’ She said she asked because ‘that was the same shirt you had on the last time I saw you.’ I can’t remember what I wore yesterday, much less two or three days ago. But they observe everything.”

And this is what Tina has learned from her own observations.

"Kids like structure and discipline, if given in a loving way," she said. "I have let my kids know, from the time they get on the bus, how I expect them to act. And when they don't behave properly, I talk to them in a quiet but stern voice. I talk with other people's kids the way I would expect them to talk to mine.

"I find that children respect you when you respect them. I say good morning and have a good day or good evening to every child when they get on and off. At the beginning of the year, some say it back, some don't. By the end of the school year, 95 percent will say it to me before I even have a chance to say it to them."

A member of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Upperville and a huge fan of Pastor Phillip Lewis, Tina described herself as "a strong woman of faith...I love people and I love my church family."

She also loves driving that school bus.

"I've been around children all of my adult life," she said. "I have so many nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews and even some great-great nieces and nephews. All of the children I've come in contact with pretty much know I love them all."