January 21, 2010

Enumclaw school moving

1st Time Driving Academy of Enumclaw will be moving soon. Our current location has been sold.

Watch for more details as we look for a new location.

If you have a rental location that might work, please give us a call.

Their next stop: driving school / by Tyler Roush

The police officer had worked the intersection of Southeast 20th Street and 212th Avenue Southeast all day, nabbing drivers for deliberately jetting through a three-way stop sign at the locaion.

When his students came in for their drivers' education class at 5 p.m. Sept. 12, Kenn Brainerd made it a point to tell them about it.

"It's nice to have them coming here," said Brainerd of the police attention.

At Diamond Driving School, located just of the intersection in the basement of the Pine Lake Community Center, Brainerd's objective is is to teach young drivers how not to behave like the suburban cowboys who kept the patrolman occupied that afternoon.

The eight students in the class represent four area high schools - Skyline, Eastlake, Issaquah and Mount Si - and the Pacific Cascade Freshmen Campus.

Now several weeks into the training program, the class of mostly 15-year-old students has learned what makes the instructor tick - and how to reach his limits.

On the other hand, Brainerd is adept at toeing the high-wire act between fun and productivity in the classroom.

But sometimes even the veteran teacher is caught offguard.

"Are these answers?" Frankie Vitollo asked, holding a review sheet that appeared to have the answers filled in.

"Why did you tell him?" Ashley Smiley chided, as Brainerd snapped up the answer key and replaced it with a fresh copy of the packet.

But Vitollo was quick to appeal.

"I didn't know what it was!" he insisted.

As the students continued their work, an irregular thumping clattered in the upper floor, an occasional "Hei!" punctuating the din.

A martial arts school was holding a class in the room above the Diamond Driving School's basement quarters.

"I love karate," Vitollo said.

But his classmates did not share in Vitollo's enthusiasm.

"It's actually giving me a headache," Josh Taylor groaned.

"Do they have a mat down on the floor?" Vitollo asked.

Another series of thuds rattled across the ceiling, half training exercise and half human drum solo.

"It doesn't sound like it," Brainerd said.

But in this roomful of teenagers, the sarcasm at times was heavier than the pounding overhead.

"I love Kenn." The voice lifted out of a momentary silence, triggering oaths of undying affection around the room.

"Yeah, I love you,man!" Brainerd quipped.

One student had a special honor in mind for his driving instructor.

"I'm going to name my kid Kenneth," Nick Rylander began.

Then the 15-year-old Issaquah High School student administered the coup de grâce.

"Euguene Brainerd," he finished, delivering Kenn's full name in a deliberate tone.

That their instructor's middle name was Eugene was clearly a source of mirth for the students.

But Brainerd deftly quelled this latest insurrection and guded them back to their work.

He said he doesn't mind maintaining a laid-back atmosphere in his classroom.

"I look at it this way: Who wants to stand up there and watch an old fart talk about something and be boring?" said Brainerd in a phone interview the following day. "As long as everybody's having fun and the information is going into those young minds, I don't care how they learn it."

Reporter Tyler Roush can be reached at 392-6434, ext.242 or troushATisspress.com