As over 20,000 Coweta County students took their final exams, signed yearbooks, said their summer goodbyes and finished their last day of the school year, so many teachers and school employees also went about their very last day of school on May 26.

Kirk Stallings – East Coweta High School’s principal for the last five years – was among them.

Stallings will be among 52 school system retirees who will be honored with a dinner on July 12. The longest-serving system retiree this year is 4th grade teacher Nancy Alford, who ended a 37-year career with her last day at Atkinson Elementary School on Friday. Western Elementary School Assistant Principal Rita Melville also retires at the end of the year, after a 31-year career.

A close runner-up for longest career is Stallings, a former teacher and high school football coach and athletic director, who has served in schools for 35 years. Stallings earned his B.S. in Education at Mississippi State University in 1971, and his Master’s in Education from Jacksonville State University in 1976. Stallings taught and coached football in Alabama schools from 1971 to 1976, and then in Polk County, Georgia, from 1976 to 1982, before being recruited to Newnan High School.

He taught at Newnan High School and served as a coach for the Newnan Cougars with head coach Max Bass until 1995. Stallings then went for the first time to East Coweta High School as an Assistant Principal and Athletic Director working, this time with the EC Indians (he said his first day there felt like walking into “enemy territory”). He held that position until becoming the Principal of Central Middle school, and later Smokey Road middle.

He came to East Coweta High School as principal in 2001, after serving for two years as principal of Smokey Road Middle School and as principal of Central Middle School before it the middle school was moved to Smokey Road.

Stallings’ colleagues have honored him on several occasions before the end of school, including at a surprise party by colleagues from East Coweta High and several former schools, and honors from school staff, band and athletic organizations.

On Friday, following graduation practice by this year’s 450 ECHS seniors, the Guidance office staff arranged to have the Coweta County fire department send a truck to the school to “salute” Stallings and the seniors with an arc of water shot over the entrance to Shoemake stadium.

Ever since he has been a principal at ECHS Stallings uses the morning announcements as a chance to impart a few words of wisdom.

On Friday morning – he had “saved” this one specially – he reminded students of the Golden Rule, quoting Saint Francis of Assisi: “Blessed is the man who helps his neighbor in trouble, just as he would wish to be helped in like circumstance.”

“All of us get into trouble as we walk this journey called life,” Stallings said. “Every day there are opportunities to reach out and help someone else in trouble, just as we would want to be helped in the same situation. Today, practice the Golden Rule and treat others as you would wish to be treated.”

Stallings’ announcements ended the way he has ended them every day for five years, with a wish, and reminder: “Let’s make it a great day… or not. The choice is yours.”

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