MONMOUTH – When you’ve roamed the halls and frequented the playing fields of a small, community high school for literally half your adult life, cleaning out your office is the least of your problems when fate and opportunity tell you it’s time to take flight.

Much as he tried to deflect the attention to 49 Monmouth Academy seniors at Sunday’s graduation ceremony, Principal Mike Burnham couldn’t completely conceal that the gathering represented an emotional commencement for him, too.

Burnham, 47, will leave the school after June 30 to become one of three assistant executive directors of the Maine Principals’ Association. Based in Augusta, the MPA adjudicates all student athletics and many other extra-curricular activities throughout the state.

He replaces Larry LaBrie of Auburn, who is retiring at the end of the academic year.

“The hardest thing,” said Burnham, “is saying goodbye to people you’ve basically grown up with.”

A lifelong resident of neighboring Winthrop, Burnham spent the last 22 years at the close-knit academy. He also coached for two years at Monmouth while teaching at Gardiner High School, where he spent four years at the beginning of his career in education.

Prior to his five-year stint as headmaster, Burnham taught co-operative education, coached varsity baseball and basketball and was assistant principal and athletic director.

“It’s obviously a great professional opportunity,” Burnham said of his decision to join executive director Dick Durost and assistants Jeff Sturgis and Phyllis Deringis on the MPA leadership team. “I’ve always had great respect for the MPA and the people who work there.”

Burnham will inherit LaBrie’s lengthy list of responsibilities, overseeing football, soccer and field hockey in the fall; hockey, indoor track, skiing and cheerleading in winter; and baseball, lacrosse and outdoor track in spring. He also will be a liaison to the sports medicine committee as well as many of his former colleagues in the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.

One notable omission from that list is basketball. Burnham’s appointment will require him to resign his post as director of the Western Class C and D and Eastern Class A hoop tournament at Augusta Civic Center.

“That is going to be open,” Burnham said, “because it wasn’t one of Larry’s sports.”

Since his hiring, Burnham acknowledges that he has begun the large quantity of homework it will take to get up to speed.

The fallout from Maine’s snowy winter will keep Monmouth’s underclassmen in school until Thursday, June 19.

“It’s an honor to follow Larry, who has done a terrific job. He is a wonderful person and a wealth of knowledge,” Burnham said. “I haven’t had much of an opportunity yet, but when we wrap up school that should give us a chance to spend some time together.”

Burnham and his wife, Tina, have three grown children.