This story begins, as many of the best tales do, with the arrival of a dog. Early in the pandemic, Loren Long and his wife, Tracy, rescued Charlie, a tricolor hound with baleful eyes and a foghorn howl. He had energy to burn, so Long started running with him on a stretch of the Little Miami Scenic Trail, which meanders nearly 78 miles from Springfield, Ohio, to Cincinnati. Along their daily route, the pair passed an abandoned, rusted-out school bus moldering at the far end of a field. The faded yellow blended into a dense camouflage of trunks and leaves, but something about the bus caught Long’s eye.

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Persons: Loren Long, Tracy, Charlie, Long, ” Organizations: Little Locations: Springfield , Ohio, Cincinnati