Harold

Bost, Fayette's County Commission chairman, has retired

following a working career that spanned almost 50 years.

Family and

friends gathered last week to wish Bost well on his

retirement as president of Estex Corp., the Fairburn

company that he purchased in 1982 and has since expanded

from 3,000 to 63,000 square feet (with plans for another

expansion in the near future).

Bost's

business partner, Brent Wilkes, has taken over as

president of the company, which manufactures canvas,

leather and vinyl products for a variety of commercial

and industrial uses.

"It

feels good already to be retired," Bost said this

week. "It's nice to be enjoying some of the fruits

of all that labor."

A native of

North Carolina, Bost, 64, started work earlier than most

of us. At the age of 8, he began earning money on the

family farm so he could buy his own clothes and

incidentals.

At 15, with

his father's health failing, Bost dropped out of high

school and took over full management of the farm, running

it until he joined the Air Force at age 19.

Ever since

that time, he said, "I've worked early to

late."

Following

his stint in the military, Bost worked 21 years for

cosmetics manufacturer Revlon, starting as a salesman in

Birmingham, Ala., and working his way through 17

positions, the last one as national sales manager.

He left

Revlon in 1982 to purchase Estex, and when the company's

business quadrupled over the next three years, invited

Wilkes, a former colleague at Revlon, to join him as

partner.

During the

last year and a half, Bost said, his duties on the County

Commission have made it necessary that Wilkes handle more

and more of the daily operations at Estex. "It was

going really smoothly, and I just made the decision that

there was no need to interfere with him, so I

retired," he said.

Now he'll

be able to devote even more time to county business, Bost

said, adding that he anticipates the next few months will

require a great deal of effort. Commissioners currently

are wrestling with the problems of planning and funding a

$60 million jail and court complex construction project.

After that,

he said, "I want to back off a bit."

His family

and hobbies will occupy some of his time, he added. He is

on the board of directors of the American Bonanza

Society, an organization of 10,000 pilots of Beechcraft

Bonanza airplanes, and will be spending the next three

weeks involved in a convention and annual board meeting.

He also

hopes to spend a little more time at the family beach

home in Florida, Bost added.

"There

will be plenty to do," he said. �