FAYETTEVILLE– This is, perhaps, one of the most interesting stories out of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association basketball playoffs.

       Earl Vaughan Jr., scholastic sports editor of the Fayetteville Observer, reported the story in his newspaper and has given the NCHSAA permission to use this.  It also shows how schools and school systems can work together.

       For the Seventy-First girls' basketball team, it was a case of mistaken bus identity.

       The Falcon girls traveled to Raleigh Millbrook Wednesday for a state 4-A girls' basketball playoff game, which they lost, 71-52. When they went outside to board their activity bus for the trip home, there was a big problem.

       The bus was missing.

       The problem was so serious that county officials contacted vacationing head of transportation Al Miller.

       After a quick investigation, Miller learned the bus wasn't stolen, it was taken by accident.

       According to Miller, the Millbrook junior varsity girls' soccer team used the Cumberland County bus to go to an away match.

       If that sounds hard to accomplish, Miller said it's not. He said that activity busses of the same year and model, as those used by Wake and Cumberland counties are, the keys for one bus will easily work in another one.

       Apparently, Miller said, the two busses were parked close together on the Millbrook campus and the soccer team mistook the Cumberland County bus for theirs without noticing what was painted on the side.

       The Seventy-First girls did not wind up stranded in Wake County for the night, Miller said. Wake County loaned them a bus for their trip home.
 
       Our thanks to Earl and the Fayetteville Observer for sharing this story.