Every so often, when his passengers get particularly unruly, First Student bus driver Philip Bologna uses a unique method to try to quiet the agitation: He bursts into song.
Bologna's is no ordinary voice. At one time in his life, he was heard in opera houses and theaters across the country as a leading tenor. In 1984, he was one of 11 national winners at the famed Metropolitan Opera National Auditions, crowning him as one the elite young opera singers in the nation.
Today, Bologna, 63, deploys his singing talent in less august surroundings. His audience is no longer regally dressed music connoisseurs who he entertained as Papageno in Mozart's "Magic Flute," but Rochester Public School high school and elementary students with special needs.