Brookhaven Academy football coach Herbert Davis has beenselected as the school’s interim headmaster, a position he willhold through the remainder of the school year while a search for apermanent headmaster is conducted.

BA Board of Directors Chairman Dr. Steve Mills said Davis waschosen to fill the position after the resignation of Dr. MillerHammill. He served as the academy’s top administrator for more thanfour years.

“Coach Davis is going to handle the day-to-day responsibilitiesof headmaster, then we’ll work on replacing Dr. Hammill for thenext school year,” Mills said. “Dr. Hammill is a great guy and agood fellow, and we wish him well.”

Mills said the board is still considering how to replaceHammill. He said a search committee may be formed to recruit thenext headmaster, or a hiring could be made from an unknown numberof resumes that have already been turned in to schoolofficials.

Davis, meanwhile, said he would continue to keep the school oncourse and no significant changes would come during hisadministration.

“We’re in great shape here,” he said. “Dr. Hammill has done agreat job with that. The school is in good financial shape, andwe’ve got a healthy number (of students) within the school from topto bottom.”

Davis assumes the title of headmaster at BA with plenty ofexperience in managing students. A longtime football coach, he ledBA to a state championship in 1993 and also served two years as theheadmaster of the now defunct Cruger-Tchula Academy in the Delta,which he said closed due to a decline in student population.

During his two-year tenure there, Davis said the school was ableto improve its scores on standardized achievement tests.

As headmaster at BA, Davis said his duties would be comparativeto those of “any principal in the county.”

Concerning the search for a new headmaster this summer, Davissaid “we’ll talk about it later,” but admitted he has thought aboutpursuing the job for himself.

“It has crossed my mind,” he said. “It really didn’t when I camehere, but in a small school you do so many things anyway. One goodthing about it – I get a trial run where no one else does.”

While serving as interim, Davis said he would lean on hisfaculty and staff.

“It’s all about providing leadership for an already strong staffthat’s here,” he said. “When you’ve got good people around you, itmakes your job easier. You can’t do a good job without other goodpeople.”