If the measure of a happy life is the number of other lives you’ve positively affected, Bob DeHaas must be a happy man indeed. By his own estimate, in his 55 years as a driver’s ed teacher at Mt. Lebanon High School, he has taught more than 25,000 student drivers. This translates to hundreds of thousands of miles in the passenger seat next to nervous, reckless or overconfident teenagers who he turned into safe drivers. 

“I’ve seen everything,” confided DeHaas, who was also a phys ed teacher. “I don’t have any nerves anymore.”

In 1967, he was student-teaching at the high school, fresh out of Slippery Rock State Teachers College (now University) with a B.S. in physical education and recreation and a minor in safety (he later got a master’s degree in safety from the University of Pittsburgh). He received four job offers and was just about to accept one from Gateway High School in Monroeville when former school superintendent Dr. Joseph Keifer called. “He offered me a job replacing a driving teacher in Mt. Lebanon. I had to say, ‘Please hold on,’ and I ran out and got the acceptance letter to Gateway out of my mailbox just as the mailman was about to take it. I told Dr. Keifer, and he said, ‘Timing is everything!’”

In 1982, the district removed driver’s ed from the curriculum for budgetary reasons, and DeHaas  began teaching phys ed. However, he convinced the school board to reinstate the course as part of adult education, with DeHaas as the instructor. Eventually he became certified through the state’s Department of Transportation to administer driver’s tests for high school students as well. 

“The kids were used to me, and they wouldn’t get nervous when they took the test,” said DeHaas, who retired from classroom work in 2003, but has continued to teach in-person driving. “The instructors at the driver’s test center were more intimidating.”

His daughter, Becky DeHaas Snatchko, remembers a different side of her father as driving instructor. “I will never forget the day my dad took me to take my driver’s test for the license,” she said recently. “It was a very cold, rainy day in December. On the way to the testing center, my dad had me stop at an old junkyard. He made me get out of the car in the pouring rain to go look at a smashed vehicle that four young kids had been killed in, due to drunk driving. He wanted me to see it, so that I’d never forget what could happen if I ever decided to make that choice. And I’ve never forgotten that sight.”

In the adult education school, DeHaas also had novice adult drivers and those with points on their licenses. “Sometimes it was parents of my students and they asked me not to tell their kids,” he said. “They were upset they had to be there, but then they ended up telling me they were glad they had come.” 

DeHaas has apparently made an impression on his students, because he’s been recognized in faraway places. “I’m lying on the beach in Florida, and a guy comes up and says he was my student. My nephew got to talking with someone on a ski lift in Colorado and it turns out he was one of my kids. I’m in a store in South Carolina and meet a former student who’s now a race car driver!” he laughed. “That was a real experience!”

Requesting memories of DeHaas on a Mt. Lebanon Facebook page brought a deluge of responses and stories. Among them: driving to his mother’s house on Mt. Washington at Christmastime for homemade cookies; stopping at McDonald’s drive-through for a snack; driving in South Park while maintaining a strict speed of 25 mph; the thrill of being handed proof of passing the driver’s test.

“I always tried to make it fun for them,” he said. “I’ve had a good time with the kids, and I made sure they had a good time, too. Every single one of them is unique and different, and I tried to treat them as individuals. 

Ray Schrader, coordinator of adult education for the school district, sums up DeHaas’ legacy succinctly: “Bob has been a staple of the Mt. Lebanon High School driver education program. He was part of the program long before I started, and students, parents, and their grandparents associate his name with our longstanding tradition of driver education excellence on the road.”

His daughter believes that his strength as a teacher come from his approachability. “I think he has a way about him that sets people at ease, right from the start,” she said. “He’s calm and soft-spoken, yet direct and easy to relate to. He has worked with teenagers for so long, he can almost read the student before they sit down in the car with him.

“He has so much knowledge from working with students over the years. He’s pretty much seen and heard it all. There’s not much that a student can say that would shock him. I think students love him because he is a down-to-earth, fair guy. He keeps things positive. And whether he’s teaching or not, that’s just how he is.”

His plans for retirement center around his family: wife Beverly, to whom he’s been married 54 years; son Brian, his wife, and their three children; and daughter Becky, her husband, and their two children. DeHaas recently finished teaching his fifth and final grandchild, Colby, to drive and watched with pride as he passed his drivers test. A family camping trip to Florida and Myrtle Beach is planned for this summer. “Beaches and family!” he said happily.

Looking back at his long career, Bob DeHaas is reflective. “I knew I’d never make a lot of money. But working with kids was a great reward. What I’ll miss most is that interaction with them. Kids keep me young!”