The closest Greg Espe ever came to dying in 33 years teaching driver’s education for the Coeur d’Alene School District was during that very first year.
He was in a car full of to-be drivers. A student driver was at the wheel, going 65 mph in a snowstorm on the freeway.
“Because I grew up in Coeur d’Alene, I knew a lot of loggers,” Espe, 63, said Sept. 16 while visiting the Press office.
A logging truck was speeding past in the left lane. A student in the backseat said to the girl driving, “Hey, I think that’s your uncle driving that logging truck.”
Wondering if it was someone he also knew, Espe looked over at the logging truck. The distracted young driver looked over at the passing truck as well, inadvertently crossing into the left lane and almost into the logging truck.
“She went right underneath of it,” Espe said. “The logs were literally a foot from my windshield.”
Snow blasted the car as it trailed behind the larger vehicle.
“I could read all the stenciling on these logs that were right there,” Espe said. “I grab the steering wheel and I go, ‘Off the brake off the brake off the brake!'”
With no other cars around, Espe safely steered the vehicle back to the right lane, averting the crisis. He looked over his shoulder and asked if the kids in the back were OK.
“They were white as a sheet,” he said. “I remember I thought, ‘Note to self: You have to focus. Never look away from the freeway.’ We went right underneath that load. I have no idea how close it was to wiping out.”
He chuckled as he recalled telling the young driver, “Ah, it wasn’t that close.”
“I had to downplay it,” Espe said. “I didn’t want the parents calling me.”
Espe’s adventures with student drivers will soon be coming to a complete stop. He will retire in November after his final six-week class, which begins today.
“I’m not retiring because I want to retire,” Espe said. “I’m retiring because I feel like it’s time to retire.”
In December, Espe hit a career milestone of teaching his 10,000th student. He has logged more than 1 million miles in the driver’s ed car. He has also put in over 1 million miles.
“I’m not sure where that ranks me in the United States,” he said. “You do it for 33 years and you basically have 300 kids a year. How many people have done that? I bet you not 10 people in the world have done that. I’ve gotta be in the top 10.”
Spending thousands of hours in a car can get boring — but not for Espe’s students.
“You have to get out of the car and do something,” he said. “You can only talk about driver’s ed so much. And the kids want to talk about what they want to talk about, which is video games and the internet. So every so often I get out and stretch my legs.”
He takes the kids to see the peacocks that roam the property of a friend he’s made through the years. Another friend had a huge show horse that students enjoyed feeding apples. Espe said the animals learn to recognize the yellow “student driver” sign on top of the car.
“The horse would come flying through the fields toward us,” Espe said. “He knew he was getting free food.”
Espe has a degree in history and health with minors in sociology and anthropology.
“I always loved sociology, which is probably why I like driver’s ed,” he said.
He was a substitute teacher when he took over the public program from his predecessor, Fred Enders, who shifted to teaching only private lessons.
“At that time, he was the only driver’s ed teacher that did private, so that’s when I took over the program, like ’97,” Espe said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen to the program. I didn’t think I was going to be there that long.”
Espe took driver’s ed from the late Dave Peters.
“I always wanted to tell Dave, ‘Did you hear I became a driver’s ed teacher?’ It would just be funny to see. I never got a chance to tell him,” Espe said. “He was a funny guy. I had the exact same program he had. I kept it light.”
Espe said he stayed teaching the program because he loved the kids. He may go back to subbing after he retires.
“The kids are cool,” he said. “Because I’m not teaching something they don’t want to learn, they are all anxious to learn it. They love being there. And they keep me young.”
Espe’s great-nephew will be in his final class. Although his great-nephew’s mom, niece Tiffanie Espe, had Enders as a driver’s ed teacher, she knows many of Mr. Espe’s former students and how much of an impact he has had on so many lives.
“Greg started driver’s ed to pay for college and ended up loving it so much, he decided to change course on careers,” she said. “Very few people, in my experience, end up in a job they love and get to keep doing it for 33 years. He is so grateful, too. I know he wants to be able to say thank you to so many people who put their trust in him.”
Trent Derrick, Coeur d’Alene School District’s executive director of secondary schools, said Espe is an incredible guy.
“We’ll miss Greg’s friendly smile, his one-of-a-kind outfits and — most of all — his commitment to student success,” Derrick said.
He said Espe has long been the steady hand behind the driver’s ed program.
“It is an end to an era, perhaps fitting, as I’m not sure anyone could quite follow in Greg’s footsteps,” he said.