Albert T. Tomsic, who died July 13 at age 85, supervised the Denver Public Schools’ transportation division during the raucous years between 1969 and 1974, when escalating fury over court-ordered busing resulted in buses being bombed and routinely vandalized.
Some of the most aggressive hostility took place in 1970, a year after a Denver district court judge ruled that only enforced busing could remedy the inequities in Denver’s tacitly segregated schools.
On Feb. 6, 1970, busing opponents planted dynamite in the DPS transportation service center, destroying 38 buses and 8 other district vehicles, leaving 30 percent of the fleet ruined or extensively damaged. Tomsic, who rushed to the facility from his home that night, learned that the blast missed the incoming shift of mechanics by 5 minutes.
Tomsic was born in Primero, a now-defunct coal mining camp town west of Trinidad. During World War II, he was trained as an Army airplane mechanic, a skill that translated readily to automobile repair when he moved to Walsenburg after the war ended.
Shortly afterward, he moved to Denver and hired on as a DPS bus driver. He transported special education students and formed close ties with them. Often, he passed along his son’s outgrown clothing and shoes.
He went on to become a DPS mechanic and then rose to supervise the transportation division, a promotion that Tomsic, who never graduated from high school, cherished for the rest of his life.
When the court-ordered busing began, Tomsic worked longer hours at the garage. He worried about the students riding the buses, and about the drivers, who faced ugly epithets from angry parents.
“I don’t think Dad fully understood why there would be so much anger about busing if those in power felt it was ultimately going to be good for the children,” said Tomsic’s daughter, Aljean Tucker.
“It was a pretty scary time for my dad and the people who worked on the buses. Would a bus driver be hurt? Would kids on the bus be hurt? Buses were being vandalized all the time by angry parents. It wasn’t just this one bombing incident.”
Busing opponents forced the issue up to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1973, the court ordered the desegregation of all Denver schools. Citywide busing began the next year, and continued until 1995 when chief U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch released city schools from mandatory busing.
Survivors include son James Tomsic of Huntington, Conn.; daughter Aljean Tucker of Colorado Springs; sisters Bertha Meese of Chicago, Ill., and Martha Villano of Northglenn; four grandchildren; and six great- grandchildren. His wife, Emogene M. Tomsic, preceded him in death.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
