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NORTON - 'That's What Friends are For" is one of Mary Rezendes Brown's favorite songs.

Knowing that, Solmonese Elementary School third-graders sung the familiar tune to Brown, one of the most familiar faces of the Norton public schools, during their farewell assembly last Thursday.

Brown, the principal, is retiring, ending 42 years as a Norton educator, the last 22 leading Solmonese, a K-3 school on Route 123.

That's why Thursday's annual assembly for students, who in September will enter Yelle Elementary School - where Brown's career started in 1967 - expanded into a farewell to Brown.

Brown said she received a standing ovation and a bouquet, and a student read a poem in her honor. "No one thought I was going to make it through that," Brown said of the festivities. "But I did fine."

Norton is the only place that Brown has taught full time.

The lifelong Freetown resident began as a third-grade teacher. She said she applied for a job here at the suggestion of her childhood elementary principal. He was the assistant superintendent in Belmont when she did her student-teaching.

"He said, 'You really should consider Norton. It's an excellent school system,'" Brown said.

"In 1967, they needed teachers," Brown recalled. "But you know what impressed me about Norton? They wouldn't hire anyone unless they saw you teach," which they did in Belmont.

Norton school officials were impressed, and hired her to teach at what is now the Yelle school.

"I was on the top floor, teaching third grade," Brown recalled. "I knew no one in this town."

Her first class had 25 students.

Brown said she remembers her very first student: Donna Fernandes, whose family owned Fernandes Supermarket.

"She was bright," Brown said. "Sometimes, I took her home. Those days, you took students home in your car."

Brown taught at that school and then at Nourse Elementary School before coming to Solmonese in 1978 to teach.

She became assistant principal in 1980.

Seven years later, then-Superintendent Maurice Splaine named her principal, first on a temporary basis.

"It wasn't one of my goals," Brown said. "I always had some leadership ability - I was a unit leader - and I came down and I liked it."

Brown was challenged early.

One month after Brown became principal, "We had our first teachers strike."

"I didn't even know what I was supposed to do," she recalled.

On New Year's Day 1990, Brown handled another unfamiliar crisis: an early-morning fire in the school's kindergarten wing.

Brown said she received the initial call at 1:30 a.m.

"I wanted to come up here right away, but it was foggy," she said.

Instead, Splaine had her meet him at 6 a.m. to discuss the situation.

"We re-opened the school in two days, and the kindergarten in three," Brown said.

The wing re-opened that September.

Brown said the community really supported the school during the incident, which was typical.

"This is the JCS School family," Brown said. "If anyone has a loss, if anyone is going through a tough time in their life, this school pulls together."

A number of Norton leaders have come through Brown's classroom, including Police Chief Brian Clark and Tree Warden Michael Tierney.

"I think I have somebody on every committee in town," she said.

She also has had the children - and two grandchildren - of her past students.

Solmonese hosted a reception for Brown last week so community members could offer their well-wishes, and the school committee renamed the Solmonese library the Mary E.R. Brown Library.

Brown was surprised. She said the library is her favorite part of the school because it hosts special events.

"I've been through fires here. I've been through strikes. And I was overwhelmed. I guess it's because I like to be in control," Brown said.

"I just love this staff and this school and the parents."

Brown said she plans to spend time with her family, which includes her husband and 24 nieces and nephews.

She also wants to work with adults.

"I've always wanted to do that," she said.

"I'll have to get children (involved), because I'm going to need a fix."