If you've talked to Gov. Kenny Guinn about school kids, or if you've been in an audience to hear him talk about education, chances are you've heard his anecdote about the Las Vegas middle school that bears his name.

During a visit to the campus, Guinn began talking to a young man about the school's namesake. Guinn asks the youngster if he knows the guy, and hears a report about some old dude with gray hair. Then Guinn points to his picture on the wall and the kid realizes who he's standing next to.

As much as seasoned politicos recoil when they hear that story (and believe me, I've spared you three to five minutes of it), it cuts to the essence of our outgoing two-term governor.

In my mind, Kenny Guinn has somehow ended his eight years as governor carrying the title cherished by everyone who runs for the office: The Education Governor.

Sure, he launched the Millennium Scholarship, which has served 35,000 students and counting, but his real commitment to education came in his typical roundabout way.

What rabid Republicans consider the state's largest-ever tax increase, which Guinn approved in 2003, was really supposed to be a frank discussion about how Nevada could emerge from its backwater status in so many social indices to swim with the regular schools of fish everywhere else.

Guinn tried to educate the state about its budget, about how we pay for things and about how much money we actually devote to items that are deemed important to people on both sides of the aisle: public safety, public education and health care.

Because Guinn is more of a father and grandfather than a politician, he understood why teens needed a shot to go to college and why the children of working poor Nevadans needed free health insurance.

Someone who asks first about your own kid while drinking a Bud Light with you in a small Carson City pub is a real man, not the kind of empty suit we so often see in government.

Guinn has been at the helm of utilities, the Clark County School District and UNLV, but he isn't just a CEO devoid of emotion.

Politicians like to talk about weighty issues, from taxation to the death penalty, in sound-biteable nuggets. They generally have no real policy agenda in mind.

I won't forget the way Guinn struggled with whether to commute a death sentence for Thomas Nevius, a death row inmate whose mental capacity hovered around the IQ range that denotes retardation.

Before lawmakers enacted reforms here and before the U.S. Supreme Court made it unlawful to execute the mentally ill, Guinn, from his seat on the Pardons Board, looked into the heart of the issue from the perspective of fairness and made the right decision in allowing Nevius to live.

In his 2003 State of the State address, Guinn talked about Nevada's future as a Thomas Wolfe kind of crossroads. The right path wasn't just about raising taxes, it was about correcting a revenue structure that relied too heavily on taxes that could easily dip in times of economic hardship.

Guinn knew the state's finances were in bad shape when he ran for office and when he took over in 1998. He reviewed spending, established a freeze on hiring and salary increases, cut some positions and reformed the worker's compensation program to save money.

It wasn't until 2003, in the aftermath of the 9/11-induced economic slide, that Guinn took a stand in proposing tax increases.

But his shortfall wasn't in proposing $1 billion in spending increases. It was, true to his form, in not being able to sell it.

Similarly, Guinn failed to protect his real policy baby -- the scholarships -- for the future when the tobacco settlement revenues that fund it began to fall back. Guinn could have proposed an endowment or securitization program, but left decisions -- as he did in 2003 with the tax increases -- to the Legislature.

Guinn often gave rambling speeches, and was fonder of showing you how things (like the massive state budget) worked by drawing on paper, circles and arrows everywhere. But he was also the kind of governor, who, upon arriving at the Capitol early on a cold morning, saw a reporter or two waiting near his parking space.

He'd exit "Nevada 1" and, before removing gloves or coat, would answer -- at length and depth -- anything we asked.

When Guinn announced he needed prostate surgery, his news conference was so personal at times that his press aides would cringe at the details the governor was offering about his own health.

That was the teacher in him, telling men to get their PSA checked and standing tall as a role model.

Historians like tidy things in the legacy department. With presidents, they're usually entitlement programs, the end of a war or leadership at a time of national struggle.

With governors, it's usually tax rebates or innovative programs that spark economic development. In determining Guinn's legacy, it's easy to pick the Millennium Scholarship or the Senior Rx program he implemented with help from incoming Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley.

When Guinn pushed for a tax rebate in 2005, he was amazed that some criticized it as a poor choice given the state's other revenue needs. But Guinn relished the handwritten note he received from an old woman who saw her $75 as a blessing.

In the years to come, Guinn's legacy will probably come into sharper focus. He will be remembered as the governor so committed to education that he was the first to care enough to commit enough resources to make it better.

Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.