Henry County man builds buses for the stars
Bobby Easter's customers include country music entertainers, a gospel
group from the region and even a Canadian hockey team.
STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times
Bobby Easter stands inside a 2005 MCI bus recently sold to a Canadian
hockey team. Easter said that many churches that once relied on
15-passenger vans to carry congregation members now buy buses that hold
more people, and have a bathroom and luggage space.]
Bobby Easter says it over and over, "I love buses." He even had one
tattooed on his right upper arm with the names of all of his
grandchildren.
Bobby Easter uses a code to open the door of a 2005 bus used by Larnell Starkey & The Spiritual Seven Gospel Singers.
The shell of a MCI DL3 bus that is being completely refurbished and
will be either a charter or church bus. It was recently given a new coat
of exterior paint in the spray booth. Two seats are left for
passengers to sit when the bus is being test driven. Easter will design
the interior and have it installed.
This MCI 2006 entertainer bus was used by Barbara Mandrell and then by
Casting Crowns and is one of Bobby Easter's fleet. It sleeps 12 and
includes two living areas, one in the front and one in the rear. Many
music groups rely on their tour buses for "a home away from home."
Bobby Easter had a copy of the cover for the 10th album produced by The
Easter Brothers, "Don't Overlook Your Blessings." Bobby Easter is the
young boy in the picture.
Bobby Easter's has a field of about 300 buses, waiting for their
rebirth, along Fairystone Park Highway (Virginia 57) just outside of
Bassett. Easter said he's sold about 60 of them.
Photo from GoogleEarth
An aerial view by Google Earth shows hundreds of used buses parked at
Easter's Bus and Coach Sales' main location off the Fairystone Park
Highway in Henry County. The company's inventory also includes used
buses parked elsewhere along the highway, as well as off U.S. 220 in
Franklin County and in Mount Airy, N.C., and Maiden, N.C.
Bobby Easter grew up lullabied by bluegrass gospel and the diesel chuffing of the Easter Brothers’ tour bus.
He was 6 months old in 1961 when his mother left him and his two
older brothers and their musician father, Edd Easter. Father and sons
moved from Danville to live with Edd’s mother in Mount Airy, N.C.
After Edd remarried, the family moved to Woolwine in Patrick County.
A constant throughout these transitions was the tour bus that the boys often thought of as home.
“One thing these Easter males had in common was that they were
spending a lot of time sitting on the same bus, riding from gospel show
to gospel show,” reports an online iTunes history of the Easter
Brothers.
Bobby, now 51 years old, bought his first used bus in 1979 for $5,500
from a man in Greensboro, N.C. It was a General Motors 4104, described
by many bus aficionados as the most popular highway coach of all time.
He kept the bus about six months, fixed it up a bit and then resold it
for $15,000.
“And I thought, ‘Hello.’ Then it kind of escalated,” he said. “All
the Easters have wound up having a bus. I just went overboard.”
About 30 years ago, Bobby Easter and his wife, Karen, founded
Easter’s Bus and Coach Sales and Easter’s Auto Sales in Henry County.
Last week, Bobby Easter said the company inventory included about 500
used buses, “more or less.”
He buys used buses from a host of sources, including transit or
charter bus lines that have gone belly-up . He occasionally acquires
dozens of coaches in one deal. Sometimes the buses are simply
refurbished. Other times, “seated buses” are converted into entertainer
coaches, with bunks and couches, a bathroom, a kitchen, satellite TV and
more.
Music performers who have bought or leased buses from the business
have included, among others: Rascal Flatts, Barbara Mandrell, Casting
Crowns , the Lonesome River Band, the Statler Brothers, Mel Tillis and
the Oak Ridge Boys.
Easter’s Bus and Coach Sales has sold buses to customers throughout
the United States and Canada, as well as to buyers in Guatemala and
Puerto Rico. Easter said the highest price he has ever gotten for a
bus was $750,000.
Edith Davis is vice president of operations for Danville-based Bosman
Coach, a charter bus company that has purchased several motor coaches
from Easter.
“He’s been a good person to work with and very understanding,” Davis
said. “We’ve never gotten a bus from them that we had to do any major
work on.”
Hundreds of used buses are stashed at Easter’s Bus and Coach Sales’
main location along the Fairystone Park Highway near Bassett. About 50
are parked off U.S. 220 in Franklin County between Rocky Mount and
Martinsville on land the Easters own. More are stored elsewhere,
including in Mount Airy and Maiden, N.C., Easter said. About 50 buses
are being leased by customers, including entertainers.
Tim Hall , Henry County’s administrator, acknowledged in an email
that officials occasionally field complaints that the parked buses are
an eyesore.
“We receive periodic complaints regarding the buses, particularly
along the Virginia 57 (Fairystone Park Highway) location,” Hall said.
“Members of our staff have a fairly consistent dialogue with Mr. Easter
to make sure he is complying with the regulations under which he’s
supposed to operate.”
As a youth, Easter’s upbringing emphasized music. He dropped out of high school.
“My grades weren’t good,” he said.
He said he wishes he had stayed and gotten a diploma.
“I think I would have had more self-esteem if I had got that,” he said.
He moved to Nashville, Tenn., and worked as a staff musician at the
Grand Ole Opry for about a year and a half. Easter said that even though
he “can’t read a lick of music,” he can play more than a dozen
instruments — including the banjo, Dobro, mandolin, piano and steel
guitar.
Edd Easter left school early, too.
Bobby said it seems God gave the family musical ability to help them compensate for a lack of formal education.
“It was either play music or starve,” he said.
When Easter left Nashville and returned to Woolwine, he said some
people likely figured he would never amount to much. But then he met
Karen at the store where she worked in Collinsville.
“After I met Karen, I thought, ‘I’m going to make something of myself,’ ” he said.
He and Karen have been married more than 33 years. Daughter Melissa
Easter-Calfee, 32, works in the family business. Daughter Michelle is
29. Bobby and Karen have four grandchildren.
Easter-Calfee said her father’s casual clothes can be deceiving.
“Looking at him, you wouldn’t know he was a businessman,” she said. “How he dresses, you wouldn’t think he had anything.”
Easter acknowledged he feels most comfortable around customers in similar attire.
“The man in the suit scares me. But the man in bib overalls or jeans — he’s going to buy a bus,” he said.
Karen handles finances for the business, makes decorating decisions for bus makeovers and much more.
“I can put deals together,” Bobby Easter said.
Average annual revenue for the auto and bus businesses totals “probably about $6 million,” he said.
Larnell Starkey & The Spiritual Seven Gospel Singers, based in
Wirtz, has toured in buses purchased from Easter’s Bus and Coach Sales.
Dar Alexander is CEO of Dar Records and handles bookings and sometimes plays keyboard for The Spiritual Seven.
She said she has bought four buses from Easter’s, including one seated bus and three entertainer-style buses.
“We can’t survive without our buses,” Alexander said. “They are our
home away from home. We consider it a blessing to have been working with
Mr. Easter. He’s been a lifesaver for us. We don’t want to deal with
anybody else.”
She said she has referred several other gospel groups to Easter’s “as we have traveled across the United States.”
Meanwhile, it’s clear that Bobby Easter’s affinity for buses has been inherited by at least one grandchild.
Sage Calfee was 9 years old when he overheard his grandfather muse
out loud that someone should go out on the lot and fetch a refurbished
bus that had been sold to a hockey team in Canada.
Easter said he did not pay much attention when Sage said, “Papa Bobby, I’ll do it.”
A few minutes later the 45-foot bus pulled up out front, with Sage at the wheel.
Photos taken during Bobby Easter’s childhood nearly always feature a bus somewhere in the frame.
The cover photo for the Easter Brothers’ “Don’t Overlook Your
Blessings” album reveals a boyish Bobby. He stands stiffly, appearing
somber and slightly canted in his double-breasted blazer, posed amidst
smiling kin in front of the Easter Brothers’ bus.
Today, Bobby Easter’s tattoos include a banjo on one forearm and a
guitar on the other. He rolled up the right sleeve of his black T-shirt
to reveal the tattoo of a bus scribed with his grandchildren’s names.
“You’ve got to have a bus wherever you are,” he said.
