In 2022, a 57-year-old man named Leo Wren became a regular on a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) bus. Wren rode the bus to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and the homeless shelter where he would often stay at the time, and the highlight of each trip was his driver, Juanita Gibson.
“She didn’t argue or fuss with the passengers the way a lot of bus drivers do, and she would always be accommodating,” Wren says. For instance, Gibson, then 54, would often give people experiencing homelessness one free ride per day. She also reminded people coming to and from the shelter about the resources they could use. “She’s a really nice person,” Wren adds, “and if you ever ride the bus or the train, you’ll understand that that is something that is kind of rare on DART.”
During the year or so when Leo was one of her daily passengers, Wren noticed Gibson wearing a wrist brace. He kept riding her bus even after he moved into a more permanent home, and gradually he saw his driver become more visibly uncomfortable…