Gold Winner Brenda Giffin
Silver Winner Stephen O'Quinn
Bronze Winner Jill Webb
Three decades ago, Brenda Giffin was a truck driver in the military with a two-year-old and no desire to be posted away from her baby. “Family was more important to me,” she says. “The only thing I could do was drive, so I said, ‘Let’s try transit.’” For 27 years—27 accident-free years, she points out—Giffin has been driving around Halifax and spoiling her regulars—like the passengers on her favourite route, the 22. “They didn’t even have to ring the bell. I knew where all of them lived.” Once, upon learning one of her regulars had never had a birthday party, Giffin enlisted the other passengers to decorate the bus with balloons and a cake ahead of the stop where the 60-year-old woman was waiting. The city’s Best Bus Driver is set to retire in eight months; her gold win in this category a well-earned going-away present from her fans.
