Thursday, Sept. 26, 2008

"Tricked" truck touts OHS program

by Kenneth Lassiter

An appearance on a popular cable TV show has resulted in far beyond the direct benefits for Oskaloosa teacher David Tenpenny and his students.

Tenpenny, who teaches automotive shop classes at Oskaloosa High School, was featured on Country Music Television’s “Trick My Truck” automotive renovation show in June.

His 1985 GMC Brigadier was dubbed “Hammer Down,” and work done by the Trick My Truck crew included a custom ball-peen hammer paint job on the side, and inside, a 42-inch plasma screen TV, an Xbox 360 video game system, a computer system, a 1,000-watt stereo and other changes. A portable hot-dog cooker was also thrown on for use in fundraisers.

More important to Tenpenny than the work on his truck was the recognition of the automotive instruction program he has helped build at OHS and the focus on the students that both made the opportunity happen and are his reason for coming to work each day.

The experience began last year when three OHS seniors – Brooke Bailey, Boone Heston and Dillon Robbins – came up with the idea of getting Tenpenny’s truck onto the CMT program and met a show cast member at a business open house in Valley Falls.

They had written a three or four-page letter and talked the cast member into seeing what he could do. He said he didn’t know how much he could do, as producers receive 30,000 requests a year for vehicles for the show. The students were asked to resubmit the letter by producers two or three months later, and Tenpenny and others traveled to Joplin, Mo., for an intensive interview.

“They did a written part, a video interview and a part on the truck,” Tenpenny said. “Then we did a personal interview over the phone with a woman in California that took 4 1/2 hours. They got into everything about you personally.”

After returning to Oskaloosa, Tenpenny heard from producers that they were interested in sending a film crew to OHS and a crew came to the school.

“Usually on the show they spend a lot of the time at the start of the show talking about the truck and not so much about the personal story behind it, but on this one, the first third of the show was on Oskaloosa and the kids and the story behind it,” Tenpenny said. “I thought that was the best part of the whole experience.”

The truck was sent off in January and, at the end of May, Tenpenny headed back to Joplin to see the finished product. He had talked to another veteran of the show who had had his truck “tricked” and was told to prepare for a long shooting schedule. He found that to be good advice.

“He told me it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I’d be glad it was only once. There were days and days of filming,” Tenpenny said. “I never received a script. You’d think you’d be done with one part and they’d have to set up to shoot from a different angle. I’d never give up the experience, but to the thought of ever becoming a Hollywood star? No. No intentions whatsoever.”

Perhaps the toughest part was being asked to sustain an excited reaction for hours after seeing the unveiled truck.

“Only about the first few seconds where I see the truck was there an actual genuine reaction,” Tenpenny said. “We had shot all day and they want you to talk to the camera and talk about what it means. By that time, I was just done. I didn’t know what to say, but it came out all right.”

The story behind the experience goes back nearly 15 years to when Tenpenny started as an automotive teacher in Lawrence. He taught 10 years there and was serving on the Oskaloosa school board when the decision was made to start an automotive program at OHS four years ago.

Tenpenny gave up his school board position to help build the program from scratch.

“(Fellow board member) Daryl Chess brought up the idea of starting an automotive program in lieu of the usual woods, because the then-shop instructor was talking about going to Seaman, closer to where he lived,” Tenpenny said. “We thought we had a couple years to go but the teacher went ahead earlier than we thought so we decided to go with it. We started with an alignment machine and two lifts and built from there.”

The program focuses on instruction but also on getting the students thinking about their futures and where the automotive skills can take them once they leave OHS behind.

“I think the administration is finding just how rare the program is in working with so many young people on a hands-on basis like this,” Tenpenny said. “Our goal was to place 50 percent in the field in further education when they graduated, and we’re exceeding that. We have one student that’s at Pittsburg State studying collision work and the insurance part of it and she tested out of a couple courses. The program gives the kids an opportunity to see all the ways they can go with this, be it private industry or the military or something else.”

Tenpenny and other school officials have been able to work with the Army and many different companies on field trips and other ways to build a pipeline to keep the students on track in the field.

“The Army has sent people here, and we’ve had people from John Deere and other companies come in to see what we’re doing,” Tenpenny said. “We’ve got 18 different companies in total watching and checking in on our students. We’re trying to bring the world to them as much as we can, and that for them to step out from here right into the world of work is really an injustice to themselves. We’ve found that the industry and post-education (entities) will step up and help.”

Another facet of the program is summer work done between Tenpenny and the students. Eight years ago, while he was at LHS, Tenpenny was encouraged to take on the “Great Race” across the U.S. and initially resisted the idea before it worked out. The summer program lives on today as Tenpenny takes a crew of his advanced students to take part in the national “Power Tour” race each summer.

“At first, I said, there’s no money, we’ve got no car ready to go, and you’re wanting me to go into one of the most grueling races in the U.S.?” Tenpenny said of how the summer program started with a group of Lawrence and Oskaloosa students. “With the grace of God, I guess I’d say, all the pieces just fell into place. We ended up placing third and getting a spirit of the event award for our team of kids. It takes the kids out of their normal environment and makes them use what they’ve been taught and see it applied to real situations.”

Schools in other states have contacted Tenpenny and the school for more information on the summer program. Tenpenny said this year’s Power Tour is set to be featured on the Speed Channel and Spike TV and some of the team will be featured in Hot Rod Magazine’s Cherry Bomb calendar that is a pull-out in an issue of the magazine later this year.

Above all, Tenpenny said he’s proudest of how his students have handled the attention they have gotten.

“We’ve really got a great group of students to show what they can do and what Oskaloosa can offer,” Tenpenny said. “They’ve been so mature about it. These aren’t sit-on-the-couch kids. They want to get out and do things.”

“When you talk about the idea of sending your teenager out with a teacher and going all over the U.S., a lot of people used to say, ‘No way.’ Now we’re to the point where parents say they’re glad to see their kid involved. That’s a big change.”

“Hammer Down” has been a popular attraction in the area, as Tenpenny said several groups have asked for program representatives to speak or make an appearance.

“We’ve been asked to speak at a juvenile detention center and at a Catholic school, everything that has something to do with kids,” Tenpenny said. “We’re going to Eudora Days in October and then we’re supposed to appear at a Pleasant Ridge fundraiser the next day. We’ve got a few local interests wanting to get involved too. I really figured after having it in the car show at Old Settlers, the attention would die down. It hasn’t.”

Tenpenny and the students got a little more than they bargained for when the now-somewhat-famous truck returned from Joplin. It had to undergo three weeks of wiring work at Peterbilt in Kansas City, among other work.

“We’ve spent quite a bit of time here working on it,” Tenpenny said. “It’s a tremendous gift, but it’s like a Christmas gift. It may not be exactly what you would have picked, but it’s a gift all the same. If it was done and perfect, we’d be afraid to touch it.”

OHS junior Cody Green, who is in Tenpenny’s tech III class, said the truck’s meaning to the students goes beyond what the Trick My Truck crew did.

“It gives us something else to work on,” Green said. “At least we have something to look at and show to say we might not be as big as Lawrence, but we’re advanced and have a lot to offer.”

Tenpenny agreed that the truck is kind of a means to an end with the program.

“Like I told the producers, and said on the show, the truck is just a tool,” Tenpenny said.

Besides the educational tool, the school has been able to loan out the hot-dog cooker for fundraisers and put a high-definition camera included with the truck package to use in filming football games this fall.

“It’s a key to doors around us. What we’ve got here in the program is as good or better than 6A schools. I’m always telling the kids that, sometimes, it seems like we’re in the fishbowl here in Oskaloosa looking out at the big ocean but they need to get out of that fishbowl mentality.

“It’s been so well-received. I think the whole town has felt like (the truck) was a gift given to them. I’ve even gotten calls from a couple Oskaloosa natives who moved off and saw the show and talked about how proud they were of being from Oskaloosa after seeing the show.”