By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- It was time to say goodbye.

Several hundred people -- local officials, teachers, administrators, staff members, parents, even a few students -- gathered late Wednesday afternoon to wish Carl Harris well, and celebrate what he had done for Durham Public Schools.

"We are sending you to Washington with our sincere best wishes and with the knowledge that we can't replace Carl Harris," school board Chair Minnie Forte-Brown told the departing DPS superintendent. "We are not looking for another Carl Harris. He is irreplaceable. We are looking for another superintendent."

Harris announced last month that he was leaving the district after serving as its leader for three and a half years to become a deputy assistant secretary with the federal Department of Education. He will start his new job Jan. 1, and with school ending for the semester in little more than a week, Wednesday was nearly the last opportunity to bid him farewell.

To do it, members of the crowd formed long lines, as at a wedding reception, waiting to shake Harris' hand or give him a good-luck hug. The event at the Staff Development Center on Hillandale Road had raw vegetables, cheese and crackers, the Jordan High School jazz band, a slide show picturing Harris with famous personalities from former Gov. Jim Hunt to Wool E. Bull, as well as a stream of presents and encomiums.

Hank Hurd, the school system's chief operating officer who will serve as interim superintendent while a search goes on for a permanent successor to Harris, told the crowd that "I don't think anybody in the room hates Carl going more than I do."

He presented Harris with a framed certificate, signed by Gov. Beverly Perdue, announcing that the superintendent was now a member of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, among North Carolina's most prestigious civilian honors

Harris was presented with a number of other awards, including an embossed plaque from the school board that noted, "you have touched the lives of many children, teachers and staff ... through your steadfast commitment to justice and fairness and your dedicated service to the improvement of teaching and learning."

Emmett Tilley, the principal of Githens Middle School, gave Harris a pen-and-ink drawing he had done of elementary schoolchildren sitting on the library steps.

"It symbolized why we do what we do," Tilley told Harris. "I hope you'll be able to hang it in your new office in Washington."