[rhythmic guitar strumming] - [Elizabeth] Coming up on "Best of Our State" find out how those familiar yellow school buses are built in High Point, sail back in time on a voyage of the Elizabeth 2 and the Lonesome Road Band performs a North Carolina anthem inspired by a mountain childhood.

[singer vocalizing] ♪ I was born ♪ ♪ Down in North Carolina ♪ ♪ Blue Ridge Mountains I call home ♪ - We dip into treasured stories for a look at all the beauty and character of North Carolina.

[guitar strumming music fades] Hello, I'm Elizabeth Hudson, Editor in Chief of "Our State" magazine.

[soft symphonic music] Climb aboard and float back in time on a voyage of the Elizabeth 2, a faithful replica of the Elizabethan vessels used to carry the first English colonists to the New World.

Join us as we set sail from Manteo to Bath on this maritime adventure.

[gentle guitar picking music] - [Narrator] Every now and then along our coast you might see a startling sight, one more familiar to our ancestors than anyone in the last hundred years or so.

[regal horn music] It's the remarkable vessel Elizabeth 2, built to represent the type of vessel that brought Sir Walter Raleigh and those first colonists to North Carolina in the late 16th century.

[soft instrumental music] - You can throw that spring, go ahead.

[water splashing] [soft instrumental music continues] - [Narrator] Based at Manteo's Roanoke Island Festival Park the Elizabeth 2 is being taken this day on a new adventure, a mission to help our state's oldest town celebrate its 300th birthday.

- We'll turn west up Pamlico River to Bath Creek.

And enter about two more miles up Bath Creek into the town of Bath.

[gentle instrumental music continues] This ship was built to be an ambassador for North Carolina.

And we travel up and down the North Carolina coast to different festivals and ports, and small towns to share it with people that can't come to Manteo and see it at our home port.

- [Narrator] Even though it's a modern ship built in the early 1980s, Elizabeth 2 is carefully constructed to represent as closely as possible the type of vessel that carried those colonial sailors.

- There were very few records of the original Elizabeth was one of seven ships which came in 1585.

They knew the tonnage of it and they knew the type of rig it carried, but nothing else than that.

So based on research of other similar ships they were able to come up with a composite for a representational vessel which would've brought those brave settlers over in 1585.

[fife music] - [Narrator] An odd fact of history that surprises many is that nowhere on the vessel does its actual name appear.

- [Robert] Most likely, they would've had different colors and shapes painted on the sides of the ships and different captains from different countries would know exactly what vessel it was.

- Okay, let's make sure we have all the lines slips that we need to get moving.

- [Narrator] Back home in Manteo, the ships serves to educate visitors.

Out here on the water, it becomes a classroom for sailors.

- Okay, heave.

- 90% of the folks which crew the vessel, men and women of all ages are volunteers.

We primarily self-teach ourselves.

This is in fact, a training session.

We're out here learning today how to sail this vessel.

- [Scott] I've heard of ships about this size being sailed with six to eight guys that really knew what they were doing.

And to cross the ocean, they would bring 25.

That would've been enough for two crews because they would sail day and night on four-hour shifts, four hours on and off.

- We have a four-mast and a main mast that are rigged with square sails.

They provide the primary drive for the vessel.

And we also have a sail on the front that's called a spritsail.

And we have a sail on the Mizzen mast which is the lanteen rig.

And those two sails are primarily used to balance out the steering.

- [Narrator] The Elizabeth 2 has a few gadgets colonial sailors did not [fife music] such as diesel engines and GPS navigation.

Without them, it would be impossible to plot a safe course through our state's shallow inland waters.

- [Robert] We're fortunate to have some more advanced technological items onboard today, which facilitates our ability to visit the community.

The navigation is still fundamentally getting from point A to point B, and reading the weather, reading the water, reading the stars, and reading the sun.

[upbeat regal music] - [Narrator] As it's been for generations of sailors the village of Ocracoke is a welcome sight after a long day on the water.

[soft regal music] [soft regal music fades] [water lapping] [duck calling] [gentle instrumental music] Our view of sailing ships tends to be romantic and picturesque, not an accurate picture at all of what sailing conditions often were like.

- If you were one of the passengers onboard you were required to stay the entire voyage below deck.

It would've been very dark.

It would've been very damp.

It would've been very smelly and very cramped as I'm sure you can imagine.

The crew conditions would've been only slightly better because they would've been, had a larger opportunity for some fresh air, but certainly they were exposed to the elements.

[soft instrumental music continues] Very often, they would've lived and slept out here in the open on the deck.

They had a pile of rope for a pillow.

[brief orchestral run-up music] All hands!

All hands on deck!

- [Narrator] One daily morning chore is the age-old practice of swabbing the decks.

- Oh, that feels good.

- [Narrator] Which is not just for keeping the boat clean.

- [Robert] One main purpose was to keep the wood swelled.

We have caulking between the planks and if it gets too dry, the wood will shrink up and the boat leaks.

Fresh water carries dry rot.

Salt water does not.

[bucket splashing] So we will take salt water from overboard out of the sound to wash the ship down with.

[water splashing] - [Narrator] A dual purpose today is to get the boat ready to play host to hundreds of visitors while docked in Bath.

[sustained orchestral run-up] As Elizabeth 2 makes her way up the Pimlico River a festive procession of local boats is on-hand to meet her.

[cannon fires] [fife music] - Here comes.

[rope straining] - [Narrator] Once the last lines are made fast the crew takes on a new role, helping to bring colonial history alive for a steady stream of visitors.

- To get a ship moving 400 years ago, you need to have a loud voice.

So who among you has a good voice?

Well, raising your hands won't tell me anything.

[children shouting] - Now when they're at sea, what the men are going to be using to eat is dried meat and also hard tack or ship's biscuits which are almost like very, very, very dry crackers.

And, [guide tapping] as hard as can be.

- And just this morrow, that means morning to you, one of our lads did see a spy.

We've got to do something about that.

- [First Mate] That's right.

- Give fire.

[cannon fires] [children shout] - [Narrator] So if you are in port sometime when she is drop on by to see Elizabeth 2, our state's sailing ambassador.

It's a history lesson you're bound to enjoy.

[gentle instrumental music] - Tales of his wife's mountain childhood inspired musician J. Larry Keith and the Lonesome Road Band to write a heartfelt ear worm.

The story of Virginia Johnson preserves the memories of a cherished past and stands as a testament to the power of storytelling through music.

[slow gentle piano music] [soft guitar music] - When I write a song, it is an emotion or an experience that's trying to come out.

[soft guitar music continues] The thing that's important to me is to try to write a song that people can connect with, but give 'em something of it that they can go back and maybe collect thoughts on and take 'em back to another time, a happier time.

I would overhear when my wife telling stories to our children about what it was like growing up on the mountain with her grandmother.

And they lived in a one room cabin up there with no running water, no electricity.

♪ I was born down in North Carolina ♪ ♪ Blue Ridge Mountains I call home ♪ ♪ Bright sunny days make life worth living ♪ ♪ Cool, starry nights make me miss my home ♪ ♪ Cool, starry nights make me miss my home ♪ - My wife telling stories about up on the mountain inspired me to write a few lyrics down based off events of my wife's childhood.

♪ Back in the hills life didn't come easy ♪ ♪ Corn wouldn't grow on dry rocky ground ♪ ♪ Grandma's old cow goes dry in the summer ♪ ♪ Coon dogs at night, how I love that sound ♪ ♪ Coon dogs at night, how I love that sound ♪ [country instrumental music continues] ♪ Hot summer days spent swinging on grapevines ♪ ♪ And cowboys and indians with my cousins and me ♪ ♪ Supper time grandma played on our table ♪ ♪ We're Whip-Poor-Will poor but as happy could be ♪ ♪ Whip-Poor-Will poor but as happy could be ♪ [country instrumental music continues] [church bell tolling] ♪ Sunday morning we'd all walk together ♪ ♪ To a little mountain church where we'd sing and we'd pray ♪ ♪ "Victory in Jesus" was Grandma's favorite ♪ ♪ You'd hear her a singing half a mile away ♪ ♪ Hear her a singing half a mile away ♪ [country instrumental music continues] ♪ Grandpa had brown crocks full of home brew ♪ ♪ He didn't care that grandma knew ♪ ♪ One Sunday morning grandpa met an old preacher ♪ ♪ Now "Victory in Jesus" is his favorite tune ♪ ♪ "Victory in Jesus" is his favorite tune ♪ [country instrumental music continues] ♪ Wild roses blooming all along the fence line ♪ ♪ And honeysuckle smells like sweet perfume ♪ ♪ Summer rains made me run for the doorstep ♪ ♪ We'd lie on that feather bed in her room ♪ ♪ Lie on that feather bed in her room ♪ [country instrumental music continues] [country instrumental music continues] [country instrumental music continues] ♪ Sometimes at night as I sit by the fireside ♪ ♪ My mind wanders back to a time long ago ♪ ♪ Seems like I can hear her voice in the darkness ♪ ♪ Calling me, calling me to my old mountain home ♪ ♪ Calling me, calling me to my old mountain home ♪ ♪ I was born down in North Carolina ♪ ♪ Blue Ridge Mountains I call home ♪ [country instrumental music slows, ends] [upbeat music] - Let's take a bus ride to High Point to find out how those familiar yellow school buses are built in our state.

[upbeat music continues] [upbeat music ends] - [Narrator] Hidden away in High Point is one of our state's most fascinating businesses, a company that has specialized in the same ubiquitous product since 1936, a product that virtually everyone in North Carolina is likely to be intimately familiar with: the yellow school bus.

[soft orchestral music] Starting in 1916, the Perley A. Thomas Car Works made streetcars, until that mode of transportation became outdated.

So Thomas switched to making school buses and over the years, a lot of them.

If you're in to school buses, this is your field of dreams.

Thomas Built Buses come in three basic sizes: essentially, small medium, and large, depending on passenger capacity and use for various school, commercial, and specialty applications.

You'd expect that kind of variety from North America's leading bus manufacturer.

How do you build a bus?

As it turns out, very methodically and to the highest standards.

- Probably no one understands that school buses are the most heavily regulated vehicles on the road today.

There're a number of federal motor vehicles safety standards that apply only to school buses.

[funky upbeat music] One example, every joint on a school bus has to be 60% as strong as the parent seal.

So in other words, if you take a 10,000 pound tinsel strength of a piece of steel, where those joints come together it has to be 6,000 pounds at that joint.

[funky upbeat music] Another requirement is rollover strength.

The roof of the vehicle has to support one and a half times the weight of the entire vehicle so the roof doesn't collapse in the unlikely event of a rollover.

[funky music continues] Seating in school buses is very unique.

It has to meet certain requirements for deflection for energy absorption, for height, for width, for distance between the seats.

All of that is called compartmentalization.

And I can go on and on.

Fuel tanks on all of the school buses are surrounded by fuel cages.

Warning lights, the stop arms, the number of emergency exits, push-out windows, rear emergency doors, side emergency doors, all of those things are unique to school buses.

- [Narrator] Making a school bus body to satisfy federal government regulations, the specs of each of 50 states, 11 Canadian provinces, and countless individual customers, each made to order is a complicated affair.

- [Ken] If you look at that all together, we have in excess of 20,000 options.

Years ago, we did some research.

A leading manufacturer's number one brand of automobile had a grand total of 285 total options and on school buses, there's an excess of 20,000.

[funky music continues] [upbeat electronic music] - [Narrator] Construction begins with the basics.

Raw material which is cut.

[machine pressing] shaped, [upbeat music] welded [upbeat music continues] assembled [upbeat music continues] riveted moved around a lot [wheels squeaking] [upbeat music continues] painted outfitted with interiors and accessories [upbeat music continues] tested inspected [upbeat music continues] and finally driven out the door.

That's a dramatically distilled version of how Thomas has made custom built school buses for years.

[upbeat electronic music] But there's now also a more high-tech way thanks to Thomas's relatively new parent company, Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes Benz.

- [Ken] Daimler is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles.

They've brought some incredible technology to us that we actually employee in our C2 facility.

- [Narrator] The large chunk of the Daimler contribution was robotics.

[upbeat electronic music continues] - The first robotic technology is when we're actually applying the structural adhesive to the frame structure of the bus.

It has to be applied consistently and the robots do that for us.

[upbeat electronic music continues] It's two times stronger than the normal panels that are applied with rivets and screws.

[machine whirring] [upbeat electronic music continues] So you get twice the bonding power with the structural adhesive.

The other robotic technology that we employ at this facility is in our paint booth.

[sprayer humming] That also provides a very consistent finish and actually a significant savings in the amount of paint that's used because it's being done very consistently with robots.

[upbeat electronic music continues] [machines whirring] And the other form of robotic technology that we use here is actually to move the buses around.

[platform whirring] We actually have a robot that picks up the bus body delivers it to that particular mounting station.

Once the body is actually lifted off of the truck, as it's referred to, then that robot will take the truck back to the staging area for it to be used on a new bus body as part of the manufacturing process.

So we affectionately refer to that robot as R2C2.

[brief soft electronic squealing] [upbeat electronic music ends] There is a robotic welding area for actually welding the floor sections together.

[machines snapping] We can put the floor sections into this robotic welding cell and it will very consistently and very efficiently weld all of the components together for the floor structure.

Well the key is the consistency.

It does it the same way every single, solitary time so you can count on the consistency of the welds, consistency of the application of the structural adhesive, the consistency of the application of the paint.

You don't have to worry about injuries and things of that sort when you're moving these large bus bodies around because the robot's doing it for you.

[soft electronic music] - [Narrator] Product improvement never stops at Thomas Built Buses.

[light orchestral music] A bus that comes off the line today benefits from all the advances in design and technology that have come before it.

And fresh ideas are constantly being introduced.

- [Ken] Just this year, we have gotten into the hybrid electric business.

It travels the first one-eighth of a mile on electric power and then switches over to diesel power.

It's a perfect application for school buses because school buses start and stop.

- [Narrator] Thomas also builds buses that run on compressed, natural gas.

But most of the buses that roll out of Thomas' doors today are diesel.

[compressed air jacking] And of course, all the work of suppliers, management, and the people who design, build, and service Thomas Built Buses boils down to one single elegant commitment to build the kind of bus we'd want our children to ride in.

[soft orchestral music] - [Ken] You know you're making a difference.

You're transporting children to and from school safely efficiently, economically, environmentally sound every day of the week.

- [Narrator] Which is why there are so many second and even third generation Thomas employees.

- I'm a second generation Thomas employee.

My dad worked for Thomas Built Buses for 40 years.

And I've been employed full-time with Thomas Built Buses for 23 years.

Thomas is a very, very good company to work for.

- [Narrator] But there seems to be yet one very important question yet unanswered and that is does a school bus always have to be yellow?

- No, contrary to popular belief the color is not a federal requirement.

Yellow was actually selected in 1939 in the first National Standards Conference.

They chose what was referred to as National School Bus Chrome Yellow because it was unique, it stood out and would easily be identified as a school bus.

Every state in the union, though, and every province in Canada has selected National School Bus Chrome Yellow as their standard color.

- [Narrator] So now you know, school buses are yellow because, well, because they are.

In fact, now you know even more than you ever imagined you would know about these yellow school buses you see traveling to and from school every year with their precious passengers.

And now you also know that a healthy portion of them are Thomas Built Buses made right here in our state.

[soft electronic music ends] [gentle guitar music] - Thank you for joining us for "Best of Our State".

We have enjoyed sharing North Carolina's stories with you.

See ya next time.

[gentle guitar music continues] [gentle guitar music continues] [gentle guitar music continues] [gentle guitar music fades] - One, two, and three.

Thank you very much.

Gotcha.

[flames bursting] [soft reflective music] [attendant chatting] [motor clicking] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [flame roaring] [soft reflective music continues] [flame roaring] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [flame roaring] [soft reflective music continues] - [Emcee] Five, four, three, two, one.

[whistle blows] [flames roaring] [soft reflective music continues] [soft reflective music continues] [flame spitting] [soft reflective music ends] - [Narrator] More information about "Our State" magazine is available at OurState.com or 1-800-948-1409.