PLACENTIA : Principal and Pig Are Cause Celebs

By the time they reach their 20s, most women will say they have kissed a pig at one time or another. But most are only talking about bad dating experiences.

This week, Brookhaven Elementary School Principal Paula Emry-Burtt kissed the real thing--Lady Penelope.

Emry-Burtt promised her students early in the school year that if they raised $12,000 in an Oct. 21 jog-a-thon, she would kiss a pig. The students more than kept their end of the bargain, raising $18,000 by running an aggregate 9,600 laps.

Thursday was Emry-Burtt’s time to pay the piper.

“It was prickly. I kissed it sort of just above its nose. It had big jowls that hung down,” she said.

To make matters worse, rain forced the school to hold two separate assemblies so all the students could witness the event, and the paparazzi made it necessary for Emry-Burtt to kiss Lady Penelope, a potbelly pig, several times.

And Lady P was no cute little piglet.

When the pledge drive started, Emry-Burtt said, PTA sponsors brought in “a small pig . . . just to show the kids what a pig was. Then at the jog-a-thon, they brought a little bigger pig,” she said.

“Then today, they brought Lady Penelope, a huge pig. They say she weighs 100 pounds, but she looks like she weighs more.”

Students were delighted with the spectacle--yes, they squealed with laughter--though they were told to hold down the noise lest they scare the pig during the assembly.

“Just what I wanted to be known for,” Emry-Burtt lamented.

Nonetheless, she said, she would do it again for the cause. The PTA, which benefited from the jog-a-thon, uses the money for educational assemblies, student field trips and other education-enhancing items.