Former Mason City bus driver sentenced on drunk driving charges

A former Mason City school bus driver has been sentenced to two years in prison after two incidents of operating while intoxicated, including one instance of being drunk on the job. 52-year-old Jay Charles Powell was sentenced to two years in prison on a child endangerment charge after allegedly driving a bus drunk, hitting a car near Roosevelt Elementary School last May. Powell was also sentenced to a year in jail on each of the O-W-I charges, the second incident involving a hit-and-run accident in June. Cerro Gordo County Associate Judge Peter Newell in his ruling says Powell broke a trust with Head Start and special needs children when he chose to drive the school bus drunk. There were no children on the bus at the time of the accident, but they had just been dropped off before the May incident. Powell’s O-W-I and child endangerment sentences will run concurrently, so he will only spend two years in jail.