LEGENDARY EDUCATORS: After more than 30 years of spreading his love for children and his goodwill for all across Kirkwood, Franklin McCallie, principal of the community's high school for 22 years, is pulling up stakes.

McCallie, who comes from a long line of educators, is moving back home to Chattanooga, Tenn., where his ancestors started The McCallie School in 1905. He and his wife, Tresa McCallie, who is also an influential educator, having created the Kirkwood Parents as Teachers program and then been in charge of it for more than 20 years, say they want to spend more time with their families.

Tresa is also from Chattanooga. Franklin retired from Kirkwood high in 2001, and later was asked to be a write-in candidate for mayor but declined. Tresa retired in 2005.

The couple are popular around the community, where Franklin could frequently been seen riding his recumbent bike, or the two of them spotted on their tandem bike. They turn up at community events frequently and help with educational efforts.

Franklin was an Iraq-war protester who was not out of place holding his anti-war sign aloft outside of City Hall. He has been an activist for all sorts of student rights, supporting gay and lesbian students; defending the Kirkwood Call student newspaper when it accepted a Planned Parenthood ad; and backing student artists who displayed a sculpture that some criticized as being unpatriotic.

Franklin and his friend, Blanton Whitmire, recently created the Kirkwood-Joplin Science Collaboration Project with a $100,000 donation from Whitmire. The collaboration came about after the Joplin tornado and provides a way for the Kirkwood and the Joplin schools to work together on science projects and research.

The McCallie's four-bedroom house, which is next door to the high school and which Franklin often referred to as "the parsonage," is not yet for sale. Friends and admirers of the couple say plans are underway to have a fitting send off probably closer to the end of the school year.