Arkansas school district turns school buses into billboards

BOONEVILLE (AP) — A western Arkansas school district is getting paid for turning its school buses into roaming billboards.

The Boonville School District began displaying advertising decals on five of its buses that promote a program called "A Hope and a Future" during a kick-off ceremony on Friday, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

Superintendent John Parrish said the idea, put forward by himself and the Booneville Rotary Club, arose with the intention to raise enough scholarship money to pay for the first year of college for every graduating Booneville High School senior.

"To me it's simple," Parrish said. "We have a traveling billboard."

Under the program, businesses will pay to have their decals - their company logos - displayed on the sides of the buses. Seventy-five percent of the collected proceeds will be used to help repair and maintain the bus fleet, freeing up funding for other initatives.

"The program will give districts the opportunity to supplement their transportation funding, and I applaud Booneville and Superintendent Parrish for taking the initiative to launch the inaugural fleet," wrote state Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, who successfully sponsored a 2015 bill that allowed advertising on school buses, in a news release last Friday. Arkansas is one of 10 states in the U.S. to allow advertising on school buses.