Late Sen. Paul Wellstone’s green campaign bus is pulled out of the woods

The late DFL Sen. Paul Wellstone’s mothballed green campaign bus snaked through farm country, past Carleton College and into a garage in Northfield this week to begin a rejuvenation that will get the 1968 Chevrolet rolling again.

Wellstone’s elder son, Dave, who has been in charge of the bus since his father’s death in 2002, wants the relic to be a reminder of the good that comes from bipartisan cooperation. The senator was a proud progressive, far left of center on many issues, but Dave Wellstone said his most enduring accomplishments came through bipartisan efforts on mental health parity, human trafficking and treatment for addiction.

“I’m bringing this out as a symbol of hope, a symbol of healing,” Wellstone said Tuesday as employees of Dean’s Towing loaded the bus onto a flatbed that would haul it 30 minutes from a Kenyon beef farm owned by his boyhood friend to a repair bay at Benjamin Bus Inc.

“It was supposed to only be here for six months,” farmer Greg Piller said as he watched the bus on the flatbed being backed out on the gravel road. “I just never thought this day would come; he’s been talking about it for years.”

For more than a decade, the bus sat, mostly untouched and unprotected on Piller’s farm. Until a couple years ago, it was sheltered indoors, but Piller needed the space for his operations and moved the bus outdoors.

“Never park the bus” was one of the enduring slogans of the Wellstone era, exemplified by the senator himself who was a little-known Carleton College political science professor when he ran a quirky, low-budget campaign in 1990 that improbably toppled Republican U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz.

Dave Wellstone said he always wanted to get the bus back in action and was finally spurred on by the popularity of a Star Tribune “Curious Minnesota” story in January. In response to a question from reader Sam Woolever of Minneapolis, the story answered the question of what had become of the bus.

“I did not expect that number of people to be touched by the bus,” Wellstone said.

During Paul Wellstone’s three Minnesota campaigns for the Senate, the bus became a indelible green symbol of his devotion to retail politics and grassroots campaigning. His career ended Oct. 25, 2002, when, in the final weeks of his re-election campaign, his plane crashed near Eveleth, Minn., killing Wellstone, his wife, Sheila; Dave’s younger sister, Marcia; staffers Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy, Will McLaughlin, and the two pilots.

Dave Wellstone and his younger brother, Mark, who now lives in Colorado, survived their parents and sister but restoring the bus wasn’t a priority until now.

In response to the story this year, Wellstone said he called an old Northfield High School wrestling buddy, Doug Grisim, who owns Bluff Country School Bus Service in Lake City, Minn., asking for help. Wellstone opened with, “I’m not sure if you remember the green bus.”

In the senator’s first campaign, two staffers were lost in the northern Twin Cities suburbs and saw the bus for sale by the roadside. The campaign acquired it for $3,500. The bus was already retrofitted as a camper with a metal porch off the back that was perfect for whistle-stop stump speeches.

Grisim said a couple of calls was all it took to get the green bus on the road to restoration. Kevin Daniels, a diesel mechanic at Benjamin Bus, visited the farm and scouted the condition of the bus. Tim Schubert, CEO of Trobec’s Bus Service Inc. in St. Joseph, Minn., took photos. Schubert will restore the exterior of the bus and refurbish the interior.

The bus interior smells musty but looks good for its age. Pro-union stickers remain on the walls along with images of the late senator and his allies, including former DFL state Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe of Erskine. Newspapers from the day of the crash were strewn on the tables.

Daniels said the project is fun for the mechanics, especially the younger ones who don’t often see older vehicles that run without computers. Much of the repair effort will involve sourcing parts from other old buses.

As the vehicle was pulled into the Northfield lot, Benjamin Bus President John Benjamin told Wellstone that he would not charge him for the mechanics’ labor.

“When I got on the bus, I got goose bumps,” Benjamin said. “We feel honored to be part of this.”

For Wellstone, the day was heavy. He wiped away tears as the bus was towed into the garage. It was, he said, the first time in 20 years that he’d felt that depth of grief and it hit especially when the bus passed by Carleton. Multiple times, he also said, he was touched by the gesture of oncoming drivers who flashed their headlights in acknowledgement of the bus.

Grisim, who was driving his own vehicle in the caravan and recently lost his parents, called Wellstone during the journey, and said, “This is one of the most honorable moments of my life.”

Wellstone said he was overwhelmed to finally have the bus on the road to repair.

“It’s happening,” he said after he and other men pushed the bus the final feet into the garage. “You go from the emotional side to pure joy, just seeing it inside again.”

Standing nearby, Daniels the mechanic oversaw the move.

“We got it where we want it,” he said.

To which mechanic Isaac Malecha added, “Now the fun begins.”

The tow cost $1,000 and Wellstone isn’t sure what the rest will cost, but he said he wants to do it right. He and others estimated that it will take at least three months to get the bus operational and refurbished.

After the engine is running again, the bus will make the second stop on its repair journey at Trobec’s in St. Joseph, where Schubert will take over cosmetics. The bus already has a summer parade date scheduled.

At Schubert’s behest, Wellstone said he’s committed the bus to appear during the Harding Days on July 5 in Morrison County, north of St. Cloud.

But he has a bigger dream for the bus, and it involves Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a former trainer at Camp Wellstone, the boot camp for aspiring politicians where she taught Gov. Tim Walz before he ran for Congress in 2005.

If Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz win in November, Flanagan would become the state’s first female governor and the nation’s first female Native American governor. Wellstone said he wants the bus to be part of that moment if it comes to pass.

“I’d like to deliver Peggy Flanagan to the Capitol,” he said. “I’m hoping she’ll get on it.”