Within the

next few days if you're driving in or around Fairburn, you may encounter

a herd of 57 goats following a bearded man wearing a white jacket and

using a six-foot length of PVC pipe as a shepherd's staff.

Self-styled

"goat man" Mitchell Williams says he's not kidding ... he's

running for governor.

Tuesday,

he headed up his herd and moved out of Fayette County after law enforcement

officials there refused to let him drive the herd through traffic-choked

downtown Fayetteville. He was sighted near Mundy's Mill Road Wednesday,

but his ultimate goal, he says, is to get to Fairburn where he has access

to a camp site.

He is using

the goat parade, he said, to draw attention to his campaign. His platform

is based on one issue: converting Georgia to "true" time and

doing away with current standard times.

Calling his

campaign "The True Time Parade," he has been working his way

south since Jan. 14. "Georgia needs a true time standard,"

he told The Citizen, "not the standard they're using now, what

I call Mickey Mouse time."

Instead of

Eastern Standard or Eastern Daylight Time, each part of the state should

be on "true" time, measured by its longitude, he said. Sunrise

reaches the eastern parts of the state long before it touches the western

border, Williams argued. So school children have to board buses more

and more in the dark the farther west they live.

"Our

true time would be about 37 minutes after Eastern Standard Time,"

he said.

Using his

standard, he said, school children would be able to board buses and

walk to school in daylight, preventing injury and death. "This

is going to be a hot, hot issue," he said.

Williams

styles himself a modern day version of the famous Goat Man, Chess McCartney,

who traveled the Southeast for more than four decades.

The original

Goat Man was a legend in his time. From the '40s into the '80s, McCartney

drove his goat-drawn wagon north in the summer and south in the winter,

preaching to large crowds along the way. He was a familiar sight to

anyone frequenting U.S. Highway 41.

Williams

said he has found officials in most areas supportive of his parade.

In one town, city fathers even joined the parade to bask in the glare

of publicity that the entourage tends to attract.

But when

he crossed from Henry into Fayette on his way to Fairburn last week,

officers warned him that driving his herd on the public road was illegal.

Sheriff's Department officials found a willing homeowner just south

of Fayetteville who had previously raised goats himself, and Williams

settled in there for a few days, hoping officers would change their

minds.

But they

didn't, concerned over the safety problems that might come from having

57 goats herded along the right of way, said Maj. Ken Rose. "The

law prohibits the running of livestock all over the roads in Fayette

County," he said, but added the Sheriff's Department had no desire

to arrest Williams. Tuesday, he turned the herd around and headed into

Clayton County with plans to skirt the borders of Fayette and get to

Fairburn that way.

Williams'

decision to run for governor may have been a case of necessity being

the mother of invention.

He drove

school buses in the city of Atlanta for 15 years before retiring recently

and going into the goat business full-time, he said. He built up his

herd and hired the goats out to Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, to

keep the underbrush cleared out.

But the park

yanked his contract, he said, leaving him with nowhere to go, so Williams

did what any thinking person would do under the circumstances ... he

decided to run for governor.

After wintering

in Fairburn, he said, he hopes to head out to south Georgia in the spring

to continue his campaign.

Making about

eight or nine miles a day, Williams herds his goats until he finds a

stopping place, then hitchhikes back to where his RV is parked and brings

the camper to where the goats are bedded down. "I live wherever

the goats are at," he said.

He has run

twice before for governor, and twice for Atlanta mayor, he said. Priding

himself on spending no money on his campaigns, he brags that he did

spend $23.40 in one mayoral race and got his highest vote total ever:

261 votes.

The visibility

of his goat parade has brought several offers of campaign contributions,

Williams said, adding he is thinking about making a more serious run

for governor this time, possibly even getting an official place on the

Republican Primary ballot for 2002.

He had one

contribution once before, he said. "A man offered a substantial

donation and said it was so I could see a psychiatrist," he chuckled.