We Took the Ferry (premieres May 17, 2015)

'We Took the Ferry' Chronicles Bygone Era of Local School Transportation The first to admit he is an unlikely filmmaker, Bob Sutton, town administrator for Jamestown in the 1970s and '80s, nevertheless completed a documentary that chronicles a unique era in the history of Jamestown. We Took the Ferry: Ferry Boat Students of Narragansett Bay focuses on the 31 years between 1938 and 1969, a period of time when Jamestown students who attended Newport high schools had only one transportation option: the ferry. The film premieres on Rhode Island PBS on Sunday, May 17 at 6 p.m. as part of the ongoing Rhode Island PBS series Rhode Island Stories, and will encore the following Saturday, May 23, at 11:25 p.m. and on Learn (36.2, Cox 808, Verizon/FiOS 478) on Tuesday, May 19, at 8 p.m. Sutton says he would hear people reminiscing about taking the ferry to school. He found it interesting, and the idea stayed with him over the years. The idea for a film began a couple of years ago when Sutton was driving behind a local school bus. He observed the bus stop, watched the monitor get out to detect traffic, then saw a student emerge from the bus and cross the street. The youngster then hopped into a waiting car, which drove up a nearby driveway to home. Sutton thought that was a whole lot different from how kids used to go to school. To read more about Sutton and We Took the Ferry: Ferry Boat Students of Narragansett Bay, please visit the source of this story here or this Newport Daily News story. WSBE Rhode Island PBS transmits standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) content over the air on digital 36.1; on Rhode Island cable services: Cox 08 / 1008HD, Verizon FiOS 08 / 508HD, Full Channel 08; on Massachusetts cable services: Comcast 819HD, Verizon 18 / 518HD; on satellite: DirecTV 36 / 3128HD, Dish Network 36. WSBE Learn transmits over the air on digital 36.2; on cable: Cox 808, Verizon 478, Full Channel 89, Comcast 294 or 312.