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Cheerleaders get free ride to game; bus company begins liquidation
Wednesday, August 23, 2000 By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
ALTOONA -- The answering machine at Blue and White Lines Inc. headquarters played advertisements yesterday for upcoming bus trips. At the same time, Blue and White's bankruptcy attorney was declaring the company dead -- a sudden death, from soaring insurance premiums -- and beginning the process to liquidate its assets.
Ninety people are out of work. Thirty buses are idle. And an undetermined number of people are in limbo after signing up and paying for tours the company advertised right up to its last breath.
There were hard-luck stories such as that of the high school cheerleaders at North Star High School in Somerset County. They are invited to perform at college football's Kickoff Classic Sunday at the Meadowlands in New Jersey and booked Blue and White to carry them there. Now, there are no buses, and 28 cheerleaders and 44 parents and coaches sank $9,600 into a company that lies belly up.
Their Good Samaritan is Happy Time Travel, a transit company based in Northern Cambria, Cambria County. Happy Time agreed yesterday to donate a motor coach to carry the cheerleaders and chaperones to the game.
"We have kids in school ourselves," company owner Jerry Tibbott said.
James Walsh of Johnstown, Blue and White's lawyer and the only company representative who would comment yesterday, said the protection from creditors the company sought in bankruptcy court nine months ago would be converted this week to an outright liquidation.
The bad-news story began Nov. 21, when Blue and White buses crashed in northeast Pennsylvania as they carried Penn State University students home from New York City. The crash killed a driver and a student from Fayette County.
A week later, the company sought protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code. In April, the federal government fined Blue and White $90,000 for safety violations discovered in the crash investigation. By last weekend, with insurance coverage due to lapse, the company was getting estimates for a new policy with what Walsh characterized as near-threefold increases in its previous six-figure premium.
No insurance meant no company, Walsh said.
He suggested that customers holding Blue and White tickets could get most of their money back by filing bankruptcy court claims and waiting for company assets to be liquidated.
The liquidation also will mean that lawsuits pending from the crash will come back to life after being stayed while the company was in Chapter 11, said Walsh, who added that verdicts would be paid through company liability insurance.
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