By Brent Addleman

Editor

School buses for the Ridgway Area School District fell victim to vandals early Wednesday morning, causing the school district to enforce a 2-hour delay for all students.
Around 5:45 a.m., Rick Muccio, who owns and runs the buses for the school district, arrived at Francis S. Grandinetti Elementary School parking lot and found that many of the vehicles had been disabled as miscreants released air from the tires.
“Sometime during the night someone came through and let all the air out of the front tires of the buses,” said Dr. Tom Butler, Superintendent of the Ridgway School District. “Our bus contractor gets here around 5:45 a.m. and the bead had broken and he couldn’t just put air back into them. He has a compressor but it was more complicated than that. It took him to about 8:15 a.m. to get everything blown up where it needed to be.”

According to Muccio, not all of the buses were affected by the incident.
“I came up and we found just about all the front tires were flat on the buses,” Muccio said. “Not every single bus. Two of them they didn’t get. I wanna say 12 buses.”
Upon Muccio calling Dr. Butler, a contigency plan went into place.
“If (filling the tires with air) wasn’t going to work, he had a plan to bring buses over from Johsonburg and St. Marys,” Dr. Butler said.
Muccio’s brother owns a busing company in Johnsonburg and his uncle owns one in St. Marys. Muccio knew that in two hours he would be able to get access to those buses to transport students to school.
Muccio contacted the Ridgway-based state police who are currently investigating the incident.
According to Dr. Butler, the school is ready to take action once the culprits are found.
“Right now, (everything I am hearing) it’s just rumors,” Dr. Butler said. “When we find out (who did this) we will take appropriate action at our level as well as law enforcement will take action at their level. I will not stand for this kind of nonsense.
“If I find out this was a senior doing this as a senior prank, they will not be allowed to walk for graduation and will not take part in graduation ceremonies. They will receive a diploma because they earned it.”