order by - order of precedence?

[entoone]

I know how to use the order by, but wondered if there is an order of
precedence in using it.

Facts: hcounty is a county that someone puts in a home county in which they
live. In the comments they are also
allowed to put text, that might contain a county listing also. I want to
have the results put the records
that have hcounty matches first, then the records that have a county match
in the comments field after the first set of records. I have tried all sorts
of order by and group by and can't get the result I'm looking for. Any hint
or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

$query = "SELECT * FROM contacts WHERE hcounty ='$searchcounty' or comments
like '%$searchcounty%' order by state, hcounty, dtestart ";