Russell Boersma

Russell Boersma, 67, of Maple Bend, died unexpectedly at home on Saturday, February 7, 2026, sooner than anyone was ready for. For thirty-four years he kept the county's school buses running, and for at least that long he was the man you called before you drove out onto the ice, because Russ Boersma knew Fremont Lake the way most people know their own kitchen.

He was born September 3, 1958, in Maple Bend, the son of Gerrit and Fern Boersma, and was, by every account including his own, happiest with a wrench in his hand by the age of ten. He graduated from Maple Bend High School in 1976, spent a few years turning wrenches at a garage in Fremont, and from 1984 until he retired in 2018 kept the school district's fleet on the road — thirty-four winters of it.

He looked after some sixty-odd buses through Michigan weather that did its level best to stop them, and he took it personally that other people's children rode behind engines he had serviced. He knew every bus by its rattles, could diagnose a failing brake line by the sound of it idling, and came in at four in the morning on snow days to make sure the routes that ran, ran safe. Three generations of Maple Bend kids got to school and home again on Russ Boersma's watch, and most of them never knew his name, which was exactly how he wanted it.

What time the job left him he spent on the water. In summer he fished it and in winter he lived on it, dragging a shanty out onto Fremont Lake and holding court over a hole in the ice with a thermos and an inexhaustible patience. He knew where the bluegill wintered and the crappie ran, and he would tell you — he would draw you a map on a napkin — because he took more pleasure in your fish than in his own. He taught half the town's kids to jig a line and every one of them to respect the ice, checking it himself, most years, before he would let anyone walk out on it.

He married Deborah Prince in 1982, and they raised two children in the house on Oak Street where he died, in the chair by the window that looks toward the lake. He is remembered for his steadiness, his early mornings, and the quiet, useful, unshowy way he spent sixty-seven years making sure the people around him were safe and warm and catching something.

He is survived by his wife of forty-three years, Deborah; his children, Nathan (Amy) Boersma of Maple Bend and Sara (Josh) Feenstra of Rockford; five grandchildren; his mother, Fern Boersma of Fremont; and his brother, Wayne (Lisa) Boersma of Grant.

He was preceded in death by his father, Gerrit, and his brother, Dennis.

Flowers are welcome and can be sent to either chapel — Maple Bend Floral ((231) 555-0121) times deliveries to the visitation. More on flowers and remembrances.