Bert Parks, you ask?The 73-year-old Parks, who...

Bert Parks, you ask?

The 73-year-old Parks, who for all those years sang, “There she is, Miss America . . .” will be emceeing another beauty contest today in Beverly Hills--for dogs.

It will be the regional finals of a pet food company’s contest for small dogs. One male and five little bitches will compete for a spot in the national competition at Atlantic City on Nov. 19. The big winner gets $5,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to New York City to ride on the dog food firm’s float in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

This morning’s regional event at the Beverly Wilshire will include the usual talent contest. Daphne, for instance, does flips in a kimono. There will also be the evening-attire event, in which Max will wear a tux.

In the personality contest--the sponsors swear--Parks will ask the dogs questions.

Hollenbeck Division Detective Jerry Pirro thought James Lee and Steve Cho had “a pretty sharp idea” when they sprinkled dry cement around their T-shirt-and-stuffed-animal shop in Lincoln Heights to find out how a burglar had entered seven times to rip them off for an estimated $10,000 worth of T-shirts.

Powdery footprints finally showed that the burglar had been peeling back a section of aluminum siding, then carefully replacing the metal sheet upon departure. “He apparently had found a gold mine in T-shirts and could go in and out whenever he wanted,” Pirro said.

Early Wednesday the gold ran out. Officers responded with a police dog and helicopter to an electronic alarm at the Medford Street store, capturing a man as he exited with cement dust on his shoes and clothing. He was identified as 39-year-old Manuel Mora.

Co-owner Lee said he is grateful to police.

He doesn’t even mind that their dog attacked one of the shop’s teddy bears.

Greg Zacky, son of the owner of Zacky Farms in South El Monte, admits he was shaken when he received a package from a Southern California prison--the same institution from which an inmate escaped, then kidnaped and robbed him last March.

“No one had called me to tell me anything was coming,” says Zacky, who didn’t want any explosive surprises.

After having the mysterious packet for six anxious hours, he took it to the Temple City Sheriff’s Station. Members of the sheriff’s Arson, Explosives and Hazardous Materials team unwrapped it very carefully.

What they found, Zacky says, was a “gorgeous,” hand-carved burlwood clock. It had been sent by another inmate who had promised it a long time ago in gratitude for help by Zacky, a salesman for the chicken farm firm, in lowering prisoner food costs.

“I did remember the promise,” Zacky said, “but I didn’t want to take any chances.”

The clock now ticks benignly on his wall.

Official interest in Jeremey Sigmond, 35, began at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday when a Los Angeles motorcycle officer reportedly saw him wearing a crash helmet and speeding south on the San Diego Freeway near Mulholland Drive in his black Mercury Cougar.

The California Highway Patrol quickly joined in, chasing Sigmond at speeds up to 100 m.p.h. on a wide-ranging city tour along the Santa Monica, Harbor, Hollywood and Ventura freeways before he finally led them back to his Granada Hills neighborhood. There, he stopped and submitted peacefully to arrest on suspicion of a number of things, including carrying a concealed .38-caliber pistol in his car.

CHP Officer Jill Angel said Sigmond explained that he hadn’t been sure who was chasing him.

As mentioned in this space on Wednesday, Whittier city officials were a bit upset to hear that sightseers were being taken by Safeway Lines & Tour Co. bus to view the city’s downtown earthquake damage. Safeway official Duane Strausman said the firm was doing no such thing.

But now Strausman has dutifully reported back on an in-house inquiry: “We did, in fact, have one bus that circled the roped-off area.”

The passengers, Strausman says, were Whittier College geology students who were on their way to Wrightwood to study the San Andreas Fault and whose professor insisted that the charter bus driver give them a look at what a quake can do.

“The driver was reluctant, but he went,” Strausman concedes. “No one got off the bus.”