For many people, that story represents the career of their dreams. Wallace's own dream, however, was to shed the corporate title and to teach history to public high school students. In 1985, at age 50, he did just that.

"Everybody thought I was out of my mind," he says, "including my wife." But Wallace knew it was then or never, and his partners agreed to buy him out. He spent the next fifteen years in the classroom, teaching social studies and history at Mills E. Godwin High School in Henrico County. By the time he retired in 2000 he was known as an inspired teacher, passionate about history, stubborn in his insistence on the fundamentals of reading and writing, and unrelentingly dedicated to his calling.

"I didn't want to be Mr. Popular," says Wallace. "I wanted to burn some butts. I wanted to walk out of that school knowing that they were thinking." His former students, dozens of whom left Wallace's classroom for successful careers at Hampden-Sydney, are quick to attest that he would mercilessly challenge their assumptions, back them into ideological corners, and not let them out again until they were thinking for themselves-and citing him in letters and e-mails as their best-loved teacher.

"That's what you call 'psychic income,'" says Wallace, whose salary was cut in half when he began teaching. "It's better than stock options."

After earning degrees in English and history at Hampden-Sydney, he enrolled in UVA's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he completed all the coursework towards his master's degree.

Businessman, teacher, and volunteer Ray Wallace '60, speaking at the Richmond Alumni Club. Alumni Association President Mike Pace '79 is behind him.

In the meantime, he also fell in love. Returning to Richmond to get married, he was offered a job by paper company executive Ross Cauthorne. As a former Tiger editor, he was naturally drawn to the paper industry. In his eagerness to master his new trade his thesis was left unfinished.

The personalities of the business, the process of making fine paper, and the world of publications inspired Wallace's career at Cauthorne. By the time he had worked up the ranks to CEO, however, it had become a "cut-and-dry money business." In the 1980s, as mid-sized shops began consolidating, the industry had lost its romance.

After 25 years with the company, he was ready for "an interesting midlife change." He began taking education courses-disappointing, he says, compared to his Hampden-Sydney classes-and went on to complete the teacher exams and student-teaching stint (at Henrico High School).

Just before the school year began, Mills Godwin gave him his first interview. "Now I'm a serious guy," he says, "serious about history, about education. And you know the first question they asked me was, 'What can you coach?'" Wallace, dismayed at the time, lets out a hearty laugh. "I told them 'anything you want me to.' It ended up being track, where I'd do the least damage."

Two weeks later he was in front of a classroom. He got the usual five classes, but unlike the other teachers, all five were remedial-level courses.

"I'm sure the administrators thought I was going to fall on my face," he says. But Wallace's enthusiasm for teaching went unscathed. "If you can handle aggressive salesmen who will do anything to get an order, by damn you can handle a 16-year-old." Soon he was teaching honors courses, and in 1990 was named Most Outstanding Educator by the National Honor Society. A year later he was Teacher of the Year.

Wallace feels his success as a businessman in many ways fueled his success as an educator. Business strategies make for effective teaching strategies, he discovered, and his background lent credibility. "Kids need to hear from someone who has been out there in the real world," he says. "It's tough and they've got to be prepared for it."

Wallace joined the field in the midst of a mass exodus of educators in search of better-paying careers-mostly men. "I chose teaching because I felt that kids need more role models in the classroom, especially more male ones," he says.

Having observed a lack of communication skills in his former employees, Wallace strove to counteract what he saw as a serious deficiency in the educational process: "They don't teach reading and writing." While he was always eager for students to discuss history and the world around them, he knew that "first they've got to be able to read and write."

Going to Hampden-Sydney, Wallace explains, not only gave him the intellectual tools to teach effectively, it inspired his desire to do so. Without hesitation he cites the hard-earned "B" he was happy to receive from Ned Crawley; the way Graves Thompson "cultivated the good side of being a 20-year-old male"; how Boyd Coyner taught him to do original-source research at the state library; the evenings he and friends spent socializing and discussing politics at Dr. Bliss's house.

Now retired from both professions, Wallace stays involved in education and community initiatives. In addition to directorships and board positions, he has served as chairman of the Atkinson Museum Board and as president of Hampden-Sydney's Richmond Club. In 2001 he was "Commentary" columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch-his piece on the value of the liberal arts quoted Hampden-Sydney's 2001 commencement address by Douglas Foard; in 2002 he was clerk of the Counties, Cities & Towns Committee in the House of Delegates.

Most recently he was appointed by the legislature to a five-year term as a trustee for Virginia Retirement Systems, which manages the state's $40-billion pension fund. Once again putting his dual background in private business and public education to good use, Wallace's role on the board is to represent retired teachers.

While his current fiduciary duties are admittedly less inspiring than teaching, he revels in being able to continue serving the public school system. In the story of a business executive whose belief in education inspired a career as unlikely as it was influential, it is a fitting next chapter.