FARMINGTON – Between them, Paul Gooch and Melvin Burnham have 65 years in education, the majority of it as administrators.

Gooch, principal at Academy Hill School and Cushing School in Wilton, and Burnham, principal at Mallett School in Farmington, both plan to retire at the end of June to pursue other interests.

The SAD 9 Board of Directors will deal with their letters of retirement at the 7 p.m., Tuesday meeting at the Mount Blue High School in Farmington.

Gooch, of Wilton, said he has 35 years in education, 27 of them at SAD 9. He started his career as a teacher at a Hancock school and then as a teaching principal at a school in Surry before moving to Wilton and becoming a principal of the schools in that town.

“It’s time,” Gooch said. “It’s time to let the young guns take over.”

Gooch and his wife, Sue, who runs a day care center, plan to stay in the area for now but may eventually move to southern Maine.

While his wife continues to work, Gooch plans to build a boat in his barn.

It’s the second boat he’ll build.

He bought the plans, he said, to build a 22-foot boat that will look like a lobster boat. His first boat was a skiff.

“I’m looking forward” to retiring, he said, but he’s also anxious about leaving a pretty good-paying job, a warm office.

He may end up doing something more for the town, he said.

Gooch is on the town’s search committee for a new police chief, he said, and has enjoyed it.

Burnham came to SAD 9 in August of 2000.

He has 30 years in education, 27 of them in administration.

The Skowhegan man started out teaching fourth grade and then sixth grade and was a teaching principal in SAD 54 in Skowhegan. In 1986, he went to SAD 43 as principal of the Meroby Elementary School in Mexico. He went up to Orono for two years in 1998 as a principal and then came to the Mallett School in Farmington.

“After 30 years,” Burnham, 52, said, “It just seems right with my wife and I to try other things.”

His wife, Debra, a special education teacher in SAD 59 in Madison, will continue teaching.

“It will take a while to figure out what I want to do,” he said.

He might find another way to use the skills he has outside of administration and teaching, he said.

“It’s been great,” Burnham said. “It’s gone quickly. It’s given me an opportunity to work with wonderful people, people who love children as much as I do.”