Leading the charge: Red Lake unveils new electric school buses during ribbon-cutting ceremony
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Red Lake School District 38 held a ribbon cutting event Friday to unveil two new electric school buses. The day began with a drum ceremony and dancers followed by speakers who made the buses two-year acquisitions possible.
Red Lake Tribal chair Darrell Seki Sr. lauded the benefits of electric vehicles.
“There’s less pollution, it will be more air quality for our children, but you know, green energy, I guess this a new way of life because there’s electric vehicles now,” he said. “I’m honored to be here.”
After the ribbon cutting event the schools’ superintendent Tim Lutz said he was pleased that Red Lake is one of the first educational institutions in the state to use electric school buses.
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“I’m so excited to be able to be as a school district, leading the way with sustainable energy and clean school buses for our students and for our community,” he said. “It was a little bit humbling to tell you the truth. And I do hope that our gamble pays off and that this does work out the way we have been claiming that it will, but I’m confident that it will.”
Part of Lutz’s confidence comes from using electric vehicles in his personal life. He also said the new buses will “lower fuel and maintenance costs while reducing the district’s carbon footprint.”
They were funded through an EPA Clean School Bus Program grant award.
Red Lake Schools partnered with Highland Electric Fleet to acquire the vehicles. CEO Duncan McIntyre flew in from their headquarters in Boston for the event. He told the crowd less than 2 percent of school buses in the U.S. are electric.
“An electric engine is so simple. There’s no fuel filters, there’s no particulate filters, there’s no oil filters, it works,” he said. “Supporting electric school bus adoption is really a gathering of public and private funding and a tremendous amount of stakeholders.”
Highland Electric Fleets is active in 30 states and Canada. The event wrapped up with a tour through Red Lake on one of the electric buses led by Lutz.
Red Lake School District 38’s student body is 99.8 percent Native American. The new buses are already being used to transport students.
