Judi Porter, a native Selmian,

was all smiles as she entered the West Dallas Winn-Dixie

grocery store Tuesday

afternoon to collect

a year’s supply of pet food.

She’s the owner of five cats, shops at the store which she describes

as &uot;my store&uot; three

or four times weekly, mostly to buy food for her cats whom she calls &uot;my

babies.&uot;

Their names

are Blackie, Auburn (named , naturally, after her favorite

college

team), Mama, Bo and Shug (named after former Auburn football coach Shug Jordan).

Two of the cats

are strays and they range in age from 5 to 20. Porter, who has been administrative

assistant to the director of personnel for the City of Selma for 15 years, says she’s a sucker for strays. One of her cats was spotted by the side of a road and she stopped, backed up and picked her up.

Porter said her cats like &045; and get &045;

the best food, served on a big platter, with helpings

of both hard and soft cat food, and cat milk on the side. Each cat gets a spot of its favorite food on the platter, but they tend to move around and sample, she said.

Larry Crane, the store manager, is an animal lover, too. He loves this particular promotion and grinned from ear to ear as Porter was escorted to the shelves and shelves of cat food. That’s where he chose to present her gift card and a bucket of pet treats.

It turns out that Crane, who lives out Summerfield Road, has an even larger family of pets than Porter.

Not long ago, he said, he had nine horses and seven dogs, but is now down to four dogs. &uot;I love to make these presentations to animal lovers,&uot; he said.

Crane noted that the promotion, which took place during November and December, had

only three grand prizes in its 1,186 Southeastern stores. Shoppers with Customer Reward Cards were automatically entered in the &uot;Pet Rewards Club Sweepstakes&uot; when their cards were scanned during the two-month period.

Crane told Porter, &uot;The odds of your winning this promotion are

very small.&uot;

He congratulated Porter for being selected.

Winn-Dixie

offers ongoing store discounts, special reward programs for loyal shoppers, automatic sweepstakes entries, notification of special events and participation in lifestyle clubs.