Former Vicksburg High School assistant principal and coach Doug Branning only thought he was retiring in 2008.

After “divine intervention” put him back to work for the 2008-2009 school year, coaching and teaching at Tallulah Academy, Branning will next step into the headmaster’s shoes at Porters Chapel Academy when current head Lynn Baker steps down at the end of the school year.

“I’m excited,” Branning said Friday. “I look forward to the opportunity and the challenges. I got to meet members of the faculty the other day, and I was very pleased with how that went.”

Baker, who will stay on as a guidance counselor and high school Spanish teacher, said she was thrilled. “I told the board, if I had been able to hand pick my replacement, I would have chosen Doug.”

Branning signed on at Warren Central Junior High School as teacher and assistant coach in 1977. He worked his way up the coaching ladder to take over as head baseball coach and assistant varsity football coach at Vicksburg High School in 1987, then went into school administration, moving back to WCJHS as assistant principal in 1996.

From 2000 to 2008 Branning was assistant principal at VHS. Then came a short-lived retirement last June.

“It was not a grand plan on my part,” he said, calling it “divine intervention” that he happened to be at the school to discuss a baseball coaching vacancy the same day the school’s football coach left the job July 1. “Talk about being in the right place at the right time.”

With less than a month before the season started, he inherited a football team that had won one game in 2007 and four the previous three years.

Branning turned the football program around, helping the kids have fun again, and was named All-Area Football Coach of the year in November after a 7-5 record.

“It’s been very good,” Branning said of his year at Tallulah, which also included coaching varsity baseball and teaching Louisiana history. “People have been wonderful to me. The kids are great. It’s been a very positive experience.”

Porters Chapel board member Dr. Calvin Masterson said Branning was the board’s first choice to take over for Baker, and the only interviewee for the position. The search process began informally about six weeks ago when Baker informed the board of her desire to step down.

Baker, a 40-year education veteran, said she was ready to spend more time with her husband but did not want to quit work. “I still love the kids. I never thought about just staying home.”

Her work load of guidance counseling and teaching will put her at school about four hours a day. “And I’m a sports fanatic,” she added, “so I’ll still go to all the games.”

Porters Chapel is a dual-accredited private Christian school — accredited by both the Mississippi Private School Association and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools — with about 230 students currently. Though enrollments at many private schools have taken a hit in recent years as the economy has declined, Porters Chapel has held steady with between 225 and 275 students, Baker said.

As headmaster, Branning will handle the day-to-day activities at the school, overseeing curriculum, scheduling, the handbook, procedures and other administrative duties.

Baker said she will also be head of the elementary school as its principal, and assist with the school’s accreditation evaluation which is next March.

Athletic director Gene Fleming will stay on board as junior and senior high school social studies teacher and in some capacity in the athletic department as well, said Masterson. Fleming has been football coach for the elementary and junior high students. “Everyone is on board with these changes,” Masterson said.

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com.