TUSTIN : Kiss Leaves Everyone Squealing

Jimmy Dean apparently doesn’t kiss on the first date. He squirmed and squealed as Connie Smith, principal of W. R. Nelson Elementary School, took him in her arms Monday as about 300 delighted students watched.

When Smith’s puckered lips touched his quivering snout, Jimmy Dean shrieked in fright, sending the gathered students roaring in laughter.

Then some students rushed to touch him. The excitement seemed too much for the 3-month-old Vietnamese potbellied pig.

Everyone had fun as Smith fulfilled a promise she made in February to kiss a pig if the students succeeded in raising $5,000 through a reading fund-raiser called Partners in Excellence.

Smith, in fact, smooched Jimmy Dean twice because only half of the 700 students can be accommodated at the school’s multipurpose center at one time.

But while it was double fun for Smith and the students, it looked like double torture for Jimmy Dean, a five-pound black critter with a white band around his neck.

The students raised more than $6,000. Each student read seven books in seven weeks and asked seven sponsors to pay 50 cents for each book read. Smith said the money was used to buy several sets of encyclopedias.

“It wasn’t so bad,” said Smith, of her first pig kiss. She admitted she browsed through many Orange County pet stores to get as much information about pigs as she could get.

“I was worried the pig might bite me,” she said. She added that she had been concerned about her dress because “accidents” happen.

“I didn’t know who was more scared, the pig or me,” Smith said.

Jimmy Dean, owned by Ellen Schreiber of Laguna Hills, was a last-minute replacement for “Pudge, The Pig,” who weighs more than 300 pounds and could not be loaded on a truck to be taken to the school.

Smith and Schreiber talked over the weekend and Schreiber offered Jimmy Dean. She has another pig, 100-pound Quigley, which also is too big to fit in her car and take to schools.

For Monday’s kissing date with the principal, Schreiber said, she did nothing special for Jimmy Dean. The pig, which sleeps inside her house, had his usual fruits, vegetables and vitamins, she said.

Jimmy Dean didn’t have a bath, cologne or breath freshener. He was not dressed up in any way. He was quiet while inside his plastic cage but once taken out, he squealed “like a bird,” said one student.

“He’s a squealer, but he does not bite,” said Schreiber, who bought the piglet for $175 a month ago from an Orange pet shop.

On Monday, the W. R. Nelson Elementary students said that it was fun to see their principal kiss the pig.

But William Johnson, 10, a fourth-grade student, said that raising the money to buy books was as important to him.

“We really need the encyclopedias and the other books,” said William, who together with his sister, Joanna, 7, a first-grader, raised $65.

Brian Saling, 10, said the pig was like a baby dog, but his hair was like a brush.

“It was great fun,” said third-grade teacher Cela Varosy. “Our principal was a good sport.”