A group of volunteers who participated in an October 2017 trip for the Veterans Express Bus included, from left, driver Jimmy Revell, Nancy Horne, Frances Suber, Johnnie Shiver, Tom Davis and Virginia Davis.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — The Veterans Express Bus is getting ready to ride again.

Like so many other things, the bus, which takes local veterans to the Veterans Administration hospital in Lake City, Fla., was canceled by the coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday, officials announced plans to resume the route on April 8.

The bus has been a longtime charitable project of veterans groups in Colquitt County. Jerry Poole had the idea for it in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and it was led for many years by retired Col. Hoyt Holland.

Prior to March 2020, the bus left the Moultrie Walmart at 7 a.m. each Thursday with Colquitt County veterans. It picked up more veterans in Coolidge, Thomasville, Quitman and Valdosta — and sometimes other small towns by prior arrangement. Loaded up, the bus would then make the hour drive to the Lake City VA Medical Center. The veterans would have their medical appointments there, and the bus would turn around and bring them home.

Local organizations provided sack lunches and sometimes sausage biscuits for breakfast.

COVID brought that to a screeching halt March 17, 2020, though, as most of the people who ride the bus are both elderly and have underlying health conditions — two attributes that make COVID more deadly. 

On Friday, Tom Davis of the Veterans Activities Committee that operates the bus reported they had the green light from the VA Medical Center to resume the trips — with restrictions:

• Only 19 passengers can ride the bus. That’s half the number that made the trip before COVID, Davis said.

• Veterans must have a paper from the medical center saying they have an appointment. “They can’t just say they have one, not good enough,” Davis said.

• Everyone who gets on the bus must have his or her temperature checked. “Same thing as when you go to the doctor here,” he said.

• Everyone on the bus must wear a mask.

All the rules are handed down by the Lake City VA Medical Center in order to keep everyone safe, he said.

The bus will start loading at the Moultrie Walmart at 6:30 a.m. April 8, Davis said, and will depart at 7. It will pick up veterans in Coolidge, Thomasville, Quitman and Valdosta, but he said the timing of those stops isn’t clear yet because of the extra precautions they’ll have to take.