Pucker up for Porky Kids meet fundraising goal, principal kisses pig

MOSES LAKE — Five thousand dollars.

That was the fundraising goal the students, parents and teachers of Lakeview Terrace Elementary School gave themselves earlier this fall — $5,000 for the school’s Parent Teacher Association.

The money would help pay for things not covered by the school’s budget. In the past, according to Lakeview Terrance Principal Kristi Bateman, that has meant a new water fountain, recess equipment and field trips.

“All of those things help our kids,” she said.

So the PTA got busy with a chocolate sale. And as an incentive, Bateman said that if the students made that $5,000 goal, she would kiss a pig.

Which is why hundreds of students and teachers and a few parents were gathered in the Lakeview Terrace lunchroom and gym and for a special assembly on Friday.

“Why are we having an assembly?” Bateman asked her students. “You guys raised $12,000.”

That’s more than double the goal. So, Bateman was going to kiss a pig.

At first, a stuffed pig was brought out, but as the students howled “boo!”, PTA President Nellie Gonzalez carefully carried Daisy, a four-week old pig, into the assembly.

As the students chanted, “Kiss it! Kiss it! Kiss it!” Batemen freshened her lipstick, puckered up, and kissed the pig.

And after riotous applause and chants of “Again!” she kissed the pig a second time.

“That was the cutest little pig ever!” Bateman said.

“I didn’t have a whole lot to do with the sale,” the principal said afterwards. “I did it to help motivate the kids.”

Bateman said this year, the school is eying new folding chairs for parents to sit in during school music programs.

“The ones we have are really old and falling apart,” she said. “$12,000 will do a lot of stuff.”

Pig kissing wasn’t all that was on the agenda for the afternoon. Students played some competitive games — how fast could they pull all of the tissues out of a tissue box, or how quickly could they scoot across the gym floor on a blanket — before heading home at a little after three.

It’s something Bateman says the school has started doing on occasion this year.

The fun assemblies, that is, and not kissing pigs.

“I didn’t want to just have as assembly to kiss the pig, so we decided to have some fun,” Bateman said. “Play some games, have a good time on a Friday afternoon.”

“We just like to have some fun with our kids once in a while, whatever helps them do what we need them to do,” she added.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.