School bus driver sues to keep venison

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

A Stinky Creek ISD bus driver is suing the school district in the hopes of keeping the 12-point buck he accidentally killed with his school bus.

Stanley Morris, who has been driving Bus No. 6 for the last five years, believes the deer is rightfully his and that he should be able to keep it.  The school district disagrees.

“Mr. Morris hit the deer while performing his regular route with a school-owned bus,” Stinky Creek ISD Superintendent Marcus Spilling said.  “Because he is our employee, receiving a salary for driving a route, and was performing his duty on school time, the deer belongs to the school district.”

“That’s a bunch of hogwash,” Morris told reporters outside of the Crappie County Courthouse.  “I accidentally killed that buck and I think I have every right to it.  I killed it; I field dressed it while the students patiently waited on the bus; I tied the carcass to the hood of the bus; and after I dropped off my riders at school, I drove it to the butcher’s shop.  I then went to a car wash and washed off all the blood from the hood myself.  I don’t remember anybody from the school stopping to lend me a hand, and I’ll be dad-blasted if I let those school board members hang that shoulder mount in the board room.”

According to Lester Smith, the school’s attorney, Morris doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

“When a staff photographer takes a picture for a newspaper, the newspaper, not the photographer, holds the rights to those photos,” Smith said.  “When Norman Rockwell drew pictures for the Saturday Evening Post, the pictures belonged to the Post because Rockwell was on their payroll.  And when a bus driver kills a deer while driving a bus route, the deer belongs to the school district.  These principles have all been fought before, and the rights of the employer have always been upheld.”

“It makes me sad to see Mr. Morris go to so much trouble over a little deer,” Superintendent Spilling said.  “We would have gladly given him a few pounds of venison sausage for his trouble – we might have even thrown in several ounces of the back strap – but I’m not so sure now.”

Crappie County Judge Ellen Sanders will listen to the case in February. Until then, the venison, which has already been processed and packaged, will remain in the school’s walk-in freezer.