In the final

scene of "The Searchers" arguably the best final scene of any

film in history John Wayne steps off the porch and walks into the sunset

as the door closes behind him.

Gary Phillips,

who counts Wayne among his personal heroes, gets a chance to do the same

thing in the next few weeks.

After 15 years

as principal at Fayette County High School and 33 years as an educator

in Georgia, Phillips has announced his retirement from the state's school

system. As the last day of school was Friday, his work with students is

already completed, and his actual final day on the job will be sometime

between the last teacher workday this Tuesday and the expiration date

of his contract (June 30).

Phillips actually

served at Fayette County High on two separate occasions. He spent seven

years as a teacher and coach before moving on to four other schools, then

returned in 1984 as assistant principal, taking the top job two years

later.

His first impression

of the school was quite different from what would be seen today. Four

days after completing college in 1968, Phillips became one of only 32

teachers at a school of 600 students in five grades the only high school

in the county at the time. When he came back in 1984, school enrollment

was twice that number and McIntosh had just opened in Peachtree City.

More than 2,000

students completed the 2000-01 academic year at Fayette County last week,

and the county projects about 2,200 to arrive for the first day of class

in August. Phillips supervised a staff of five assistant principals, 125

teachers and some 50 other staff during his final year.

"This

is the third time we've been over 2,000 since I've been here," he

said Wednesday during an interview in his office, with a life-size John

Wayne cutout serving as a backdrop.

He never expected

to end his career in the principal's office. His original plan was to

keep coaching as long as he could. "I figured they'd carry me off

the field feet-first," he said.

After his first

stint at Fayette County, his coaching career (football and track) carried

him to West Rome, Central of Macon, Johnson County, and Riverwood in Fulton

County. He had regional success at nearly every stop, but his biggest

state wins in coaching came at Johnson County, in the small town of Wrightsville.

That was where

he met the most famous athlete he would ever coach, a young man named

Herschel Walker. Phillips recalls a teenager with a great attitude who

offered to play any position the coach wanted so that the team would win.

When Phillips

took the job, he made a slight adjustment he moved Walker from fullback

to tailback. In doing that, he altered the course of the Johnson County

athletic program and perhaps the University of Georgia's as well. Johnson

County won a state championship in football and two in track, with Walker

as a sprinter, during Phillips' tenure.

Walker went

on to a national championship and Heisman Trophy with UGA before a long

career in the National Football League. Today, Phillips looks back at

his time at Johnson County with a smile and simply says, "That was

a case of being in the right place at the right time." He still talks

to Walker once or twice a year, and Phillips said he got a call during

the Christmas holidays from his former player, who had heard of Phillips'

son's illness.

Although he

never planned to be principal, Phillips said he was encouraged by his

bosses during his coaching career, several of whom told him he would make

a good principal. After going