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This article is © 2007 EVANSVILLE COURIER & PRESS

EVANSVILLE COURIER & PRESS BUILDING THE BUS Date: Monday, January 29, 2007 Section: Metro Page: A1 Edition: Final Source: By GAVIN LESNICK, Courier & Press staff writer 464-7449 or [email protected] In a small garage on East Sycamore Street, C.J.'s Bus is undergoing a metamorphosis. A former Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. bus went in, but a state-of-the-art support vehicle will emerge in early March, if all goes according to plan. The vehicle -- named for C.J. Martin, a 2-year-old victim of Evansville's Nov. 6, 2005, tornado -- will travel across the country to provide both care and comfort for children displaced by disasters. That was the dream announced by C.J.'s mom, Kathryn Martin , a day before the anniversary of her son's death. Since then, the C.J.'s Bus Foundation has worked to find funding and donations to make the bus a reality. Those efforts have come a long way, culminating with the donation of the school bus in December by a local businessman. But the next phase -- transforming the retired bus into something new and different -- required finding someone with the experience, talent and motivation to make it work. The foundation found that in Michael Meagher , a pastor with something of a history in the field. Rebuilding buses is nothing new for Meagher. And neither is helping people. *** When Meagher returned to the United States after serving in the Navy during Vietnam and then in the Coast Guard, he wanted to put those experiences to good use.

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With a wife, two young kids already and a third on the way, he hatched a plan to buy an old school bus and transform it into a mobile home. "If six grown men could live, work and do what we needed to do on a 35-foot search and rescue vessel, then certainly a family could live in a 35-foot bus if I designed everything correctly," Meagher recalled thinking. By 1979, the first Meagher family bus was built, incorporating space-saving tactics he encountered in the military. Going beyond practicality There were bunks in the back for his kids, overhead storage akin to an airplane and a 48-square-foot master bedroom built above the driving area. But Meagher went beyond just practicality. He also installed stained glass windows, ceiling fans, wood and tile flooring and top-of-the-line windows. Visits to gas stations, he said, would take half an hour because so many people wanted to stop and look at what he had created. "They were literally works of art," he said. "I grew up an artist, and the Navy and the Coast Guard taught me mechanics. So I combined my art abilities with my mechanical abilities and literally built (it) from scratch." In all, the Meaghers transformed four different buses into homes, with only the occasional stint living in an actual house. Mostly, though, Meagher said his family enjoyed life on the road. He and his wife, Diane, home-schooled the children in the buses, taking them anywhere they could drive. Meanwhile, he worked as a pastor at churches around the country and took up odd jobs to make a living. "America was our backyard," he said. "When we studied something in history about the Alamo, we went to see the Alamo. When we studied the Grand Canyon, we went over to the Grand Canyon. We used America as a giant learning tool." *** When Martin saw photographs of some of Meagher's previous creations, she knew they had found the right person to make C.J.'s Bus. "To me, somebody that isn't familiar with doing this, it's just unbelievable what he comes up with and what he's able to do in

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a regular old bus," she said. "The inside of them makes you feel like you're in a home and not in a school bus." Meagher hopes to re-create that with C.J.'s Bus, although he admits it poses some challenges. Still, he called the experience a labor of love that brings back a lot of memories from his earlier bus-building days. The very day the used school bus was donated to the foundation, Meagher showed up early for the ceremony with measuring tape in hand. Over Christmas, he and Diane parked the bus in their backyard and together unscrewed the seats, knocked out the windows and began picking away at the roof. Eventually, Meagher and a small team of local professionals moved it to the Sycamore Street garage, where the entire bed of the bus was stripped to a flat platform, a foundation on which C.J.'s Bus is being built "We're going to engineer something a unique," Meagher said. "One of the things that turns me off to what's out there in the RV industry is the same old cookie cutter box with the same cheesy graphics and the same floor plan where there's not a lot of space to roam. This will be quite unique." Among other features to be expertly crammed onto the bus's 36-foot-long body, there is a wide-open space for playing with toys, an area for watching movies, separate bathrooms for girls and boys and a kitchenette. There will also be two parts that fold out when the bus is parked to provide even more room for the children inside. *** While he has become skilled at the art of bus-building, that isn't Meagher's true calling. Meagher, who has a doctor of theology degree, has worked as a pastor all over the country and for the last 11 years in one of the most remote parts of the world. In 1996, Meagher and Diane traveled to Siberia to work hand-in-hand with the Sakha Tribe, a civilization that Meagher says lives in virtual 17th Century conditions and was devastated when the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons in the region. The Meaghers believe they are some of the only missionaries who venture into that part of the world, and perhaps with good reason.

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When they first arrived, they saw the head of a Russian priest hanging from a tree with a sign in three languages reading "No Christianity allowed." And the climate is extreme. Temperatures drop to 70 degrees below zero for most of the year, save a few months. But Meagher said they felt a calling to go there and help the Sakha people, particularly to teach them English and computer skills to help usher them into the modern world. He and Diane approached the government there, not as a religious missionaries, he said, but as people seeking to do whatever they could to help. And before long, the tribe accepted the Meaghers. They have made considerable progress, he said, and plan to go back in early April, perhaps for good. "We've fallen in love with the people to the point that the weather and everything else there doesn't matter," he said. "These are the people that we love. We have an opportunity we can't walk away from." *** Meagher's impending departure puts even more pressure on him and his team to finish the bus by March. But they won't be able to make that deadline without outside aid, he said. "We're going to need a lot more help and funds quickly for that to happen," he said. "If we had all of the funds they needed to raise, all of the materials and maybe one more worker who knew his way around the shop, then I think it's realistic." Martin said the group needs about $50,000 to finish the project in time, which they hope to raise through donations. Meagher hopes to complete this bus and then almost immediately prepare for the return trip to Siberia. It shouldn't be a hard transition, Meagher said, because he likes to keep busy, and he likes anything that involves helping others. "Wherever I've been, whatever I've done, I've tried to do two or three different things at once," he said. "Life's just one adventure, one series of ways to bless people." Illustration: Photos, 3

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Information box Caption: DENNY SIMMONS / Courier & Press An old school bus that was donated by a businessman is receiving a complete makeover by Mike Meagher to eventually become C.J.'s Bus, a vehicle that will travel the country to help children affected by disasters. Michael Meagher Mike Meagher, left, and Roger Garrett discuss the design for C.J.'s Bus at their Evansville workshop . To GIVE * Donations can be made to the C.J.'s Bus Foundation at any Old National Bank. * Donations can be made to Meagher's work in Siberia by visiting www.siberian mission.com It will provide care, comfort for children

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