Meet Robin Martin

Robin Martin

JUNE 11, 2014 – The first day for students in the newly consolidated Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system was Sept. 3, 1963. That also happens to be the day that Robin Martin started school.  

The consolidated school system proved to be a big part of Martin’s life. She went on to graduate from North Forsyth High School and to spend her entire work career with the school system.

“Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools has helped raised me,” Martin said. “It has been a big part of my world. I feel very blessed.”

Even after retiring, she couldn’t stay away. Seven months after leaving the school system’s Financial Services Department in 2010, she returned as an administrative assistant in accounts payable, and she has been with the school system ever since.

On that first day of first grade back in 1963, Martin rode the bus to Rural Hall Elementary School. In those days, her last name was Tuttle. Her first-grade teacher was Mrs. Garland. Martin has no idea what Mrs. Garland’s first name was even though she has a picture of her first-grade class. The caption simply says, “Mrs. Garland.”

Mrs. Garland's class

Over the years, Martin had a lot of favorite teachers. Mrs. Garland was her most favorite, though, quite possibly because she was her first teacher.

After the second grade, the family moved to Motor Road. That put them near Mineral Springs Elementary School and Martin was able to walk to school.

“I walked to Mineral Springs through the eighth grade,” Martin said.

In the summer before she was in eighth grade, the school system reorganized and started extensive busing to integrate the schools more fully. That first year, Martin didn’t have to take the bus. She already had a friend who was black. So getting to know people who were black wasn’t something new.

“My sister was at North and that seemed to be where the trouble was,” Martin said. “At Mineral Springs, I don’t remember any trouble.”

Martin was an avid athlete. She played basketball, speedball and softball. She was a cheerleader for boys’ sports. She was in the Girls Athletic Association (GAA), and, one weekend, they went to Camp Hanes – a big adventure.

The next year, Martin rode the bus to Carver High School, which had grades 9 and 10 in those days. Her family moved back out in the country, and, the next year, she went to Atkins High School. Only a few of her friends from Mineral Springs had gone to Carver. Many more had been assigned to Atkins. So that meant being reunited with them. At Carver, students sat as a group with their teacher at lunch. Atkins had open lunch, and, if students wanted, they could go out on the field and smoke cigarettes. Not that she did.

In those days, she knew the young man who would become her husband – Ronnie Martin – but they weren’t dating yet. That happened after they went on to North Forsyth High School. At North Forsyth, Martin decided she wanted to drive a school bus.

“We got to take our buses home with us,” Martin said.

She drove for about three hours a day and was paid $1.98 an hour. She got to keep it all because they didn’t take out Social Security or other taxes. “Every two weeks, we got paid, and I would go to the bank,” she said. “I was just a saver.”

After a while, the school system’s Transportation Department made her a radio driver. She was the first female student driver to become one, she said. She had a regular route, and, if another bus broke down, they would call her on the radio and she would go finish that route after she finished hers. Ronnie Martin also drove a bus.

She also worked as a waitress the Dunn’s Chinese Restaurant on N.C. 66. There, she might make as much on a Saturday night as she did for a week of bus driving.

In high school, Martin was strong in math. Beyond that, she didn’t know what career she wanted to pursue. She just knew she needed to work and that continuing to drive a bus was a possibility after she graduated. “Work just evolved,” she said.

Her first transportation supervisor was Bob Styron. “He took me under his wing,” Martin said.

Martin graduated from North Forsyth in 1976, and, during the summer, she helped Styron with bus routes. One thing that meant was taking fresh maps and drawing out the routes in different colors on the maps. She had to make a number of copies so that the drivers, school principals and others would all have copy. When school started again, she drove as an adult driver. She drove students to the Career Center the first year it was located on Miller Street.

Martin continued working for the school system’s Transportation Department. She made maps. She worked with student drivers. Her husband worked for Western Electric and, later, AT&T. Their son, Dale, grew up to teach math at Ledford Middle School in Davidson County.

When Martin started working for the school system, it had the complex organization designed to support integration with five levels of schools – elementary schools through grade 4, intermediate schools (grades 5-6), junior high schools (grades 7-8), high school schools (grades (9-10) and senior high schools (grades 11-12). For the 1984-85 school year, the more simple organizational system currently in place was adopted. Elementary schools became kindergarten through grade five, middle schools became grades 6 through 8 and high schools became grades 9 through 12.

Martin participated in creating the bus routes for that. “It took a lot of planning,” she said. “Every bit of it flowed. We had the least amount of buses running.”

A few years after that, Martin found herself thinking it was time for new challenges. “In life, you grow,” she said.  Martin knew the people in the school system’s Financial Services Department, and, when they invited her to come to Central Office to work on payroll in 1989, she accepted the offer. 

One way or another, the school system has been a big part of her life, Martin said. “It has always been here for me. They never let me down.”