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Show Student Trainer Car Is Given To Alpine School District'' Special Instructor Is Employed The Alpine School district is the proud possessor this week of a 1950 Ford sedan to be used in the driving classes. Harold Hol-ley, Hol-ley, owner of the Alpine Motor company, is the donor of the car.j It is estimated 500 sophomore students will learn to drive this car before the end of the school year. Mr. Holley's gift has enabled the board of education to enlarge the driver training classes and to hire a full-time driving instructor. instruc-tor. LaVell A. Brown, a June graduate grad-uate at the USAC at Logan, has keen employed as the instructor and will devote full time to instruction in-struction of students behind the wheel. Mr. Brown has had special spec-ial training at both the USAC and the BYU to qualify him for this type of work, and an instructor's in-structor's permit. The special car contributed by Alpine Motor company is equipped equip-ped with dual-controls to enable the instructor to maintain control con-trol of the auto at all times. The student driver classes have been growing in importance at the local high school and other schools in the district over a period of years as the result of the interest and work of a number num-ber of educators, including Leo Hansen, assistant district superintendent. super-intendent. Five years ago, Mr. Hansen made a survey to determine the advisability of conducting such classes and if such classes were given, to anticipate the need of the students. The survey was made of the shop classes and he found that 90 per cent of the boys were already driving, although al-though they hd not reached the legal age: These boys were driving driv-ing with or without the consent of their parents. A procedure to remedy this situation was started and classes both in the school room and behind be-hind the vehicle wheel were instituted. The local peace officers of-ficers helped out the cause by using the department car. Next, the highway department patrolmen patrol-men helped when they could be spared from their other duties and during one year the Elks' club loaned their driver-training car to the high school for part of the year. While they helped immensely, all these measures were not wholely adequate for the very popular classes. Educators decided that the tenth grade was the best year in which to teach the classes since the students were 15 and 16 years old and approaching . the age when they could apply for a driver's permit. Utah was among the first states to decree that the driving instructor should be a college graduate with a special certification. certifi-cation. - At the American Fork high school the first year, 36 students took the course and to date over 500 have completed the course of study and performance. Fei rill- Sorenson has assisted the classes by his expert instruction instruc-tion m the classroom on the mechanics me-chanics and operation of the vehicle as well as the ethics involved in-volved in driving or owning a car. Mr. Sorenson will continue to give all the class room instruction in-struction for the course. The Alpine district has standardized stand-ardized the course of study and the program will be uniform throughout the district, according accord-ing to Mr. Hansen. |