[CentOS] sysctl -p at startup?

I understand that the contents of /etc/sysctl.conf should be read and executed at system startup.  However that never happens and I have to run sysctl -p after every reboot to get the settings I want.

This is happening on every CentOS machine and VM I have.   I can see in the startup scripts that "sysctl -e -p /etc/sysctl.conf >/dev/null 2>&1"
  is run at start up by the "apply_sysctl" function, yet the settings are never correct unless I run sysctl -p on the command line.

Anybody know why that would be?

I am running the latest updates on CentOS 6.3

Emmett