They walk among us, in far-flung small towns all over North Carolina. The people who made the difference. Into their classrooms walked farm kids, their lives ahead of them, their compasses not yet set in a firm direction. The "ag teachers," as they were called, helped them chart a course, pushed them, guided them toward goals -- whether it meant how to work a farm or how to make a speech or how to get into college. And for years and decades thereafter, when life would present a triumph or a crisis, back to the ag teacher they would go.

Where they went in Boiling Springs, in the Cleveland County foothills about 50 miles west of Charlotte, was to see Brooks Piercy. He died May 27 at the age of 93, every year having been lived to the fullest, surely comforted in his modest way by the knowledge that he was the one who had steered so many lives in his town in the right direction. He lived the way people want to live, with a generous way and a clear sense of right and wrong and a purpose. In Piercy's case, that purpose was to be an ag teacher, for 41 years, at Boiling Springs High School, to coach dairy judging teams, to be a deacon at the Boiling Springs Baptist Church and to keep "the boys" as he called them, his ag students, on the straight path.

Maybe you knew someone like him. (Certainly the students of the late "Dad" Dunham of Cary High did. The man was there 40 years and earned the moniker of legend.) Maybe you can identify with what some of the boys say.

Take Carl DeBrew. DeBrew succeeded Piercy at Boiling Springs High, but he'd been a student before that. "He was wise, he was a counselor, more than just a teacher," DeBrew said. "He used to say, 'Now, boys, if you can read and write and learn to count your money and you've got a good work ethic ... you'll be all right.' "

Piercy was the one politicians came to see, whether they were running for governor or mayor. "Here's how it was," DeBrew said. "If Mr. Piercy brought someone around and said he was all right, well, that fella would carry Boiling Springs."

And this from Joe Hamrick, another one of the boys: "With Mr. Piercy, it was all about doing the right thing. He expected it. And if you made a mistake, he expected you to fix it. And, you know, I never saw him with any youngsters that he wasn't comfortable with."

Hamrick went off to college, to N.C. State in Raleigh, but came home before graduating. "I started a welding shop here in Boiling Springs. And Mr. Piercy came by every day for a year to talk to me about graduating. Said he had talked to people. He kept on about it. And so I went back, and I graduated."

Hamrick had a roommate at State his freshman year who didn't get to know Piercy until he ran for state president of the Future Farmers of America in 1955. They remained friends for the rest of Piercy's life. Fellow from Wilson County, name of Jim Hunt. Governor Hunt recalls that his own ag teacher, D.B. Sheffield, "had a huge impact on me. Public speaking, parliamentary procedure, everything." So he was comfortable with and admiring of Piercy, who campaigned for Hunt in every election thereafter. "And," Hunt said, "I always carried Cleveland County by a big margin!"

Piercy's granddaughter, Lisa, a lobbyist and longtime political activist in Raleigh, said the legion of former students took good care of her "Pa" as he got older. "They were always taking him out," she said, "and they'd get mad if one of them was left out of the group."

When Piercy was 88, the boys started an annual tradition of a birthday dinner. Some were in their 70s and hadn't been in Piercy's class for over 50 years. There were 40 the first year. Then 50. Then 60. Lisa had her own tradition. She didn't change her name when she got married. "I think one reason was," she said, "that I wanted everybody to know he was my Pa."

Piercy had a brush or two with fame, not that he would care much whether the story was told. A former student, who'd found a friend in his ag teacher and remembered his counsel all his life, had been gone from Boiling Springs for many years. On a trip home, as it happened a short time after Piercy's wife, Vernie, had died, the former student drove to Piercy's house. He knocked on the back porch door and called out, "Mr. Piercy, I don't know if you'll remember me, but I was a student and my name is Earl Scruggs." The Country Music Hall of Famer and banjo genius was a quiet fellow.

Piercy called back, "C'mon in here, boy. Everybody in the world knows who you are."

In the world of Boiling Springs, the same is said, lovingly, of Brooks Piercy.

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