PORT ANGELES – Mike Gregoire, Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire’s husband, wanted to share the truth.

“The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs” that is.

“First Mike,” as he is dubbed, read the fairy tale to a third grade class at Jefferson Elementary Thursday.

He presented a copy of the book – which gives the Big Bad Wolf’s side of the story – to the Port Angeles branch of the North Olympic Library.

“This is one of my favorite books,” he said later at the library.

Gregoire also brought along a copy of “Little House on the Prairie,” which he noted was one of the governor’s favorite books from her childhood.

Gregoire also wanted to share the truth about the joys of reading.

To demonstrate that , Gregoire read “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs” to Evan Murphy’s third grade class at Jefferson.

The presentation of the books to the library, however, was a decoy for a surprise for George Stratton, the director of the North Olympic Library System.

Stratton, 67, will retire on Saturday after 17 years as the library system’s director.

Gregoire read a proclamation from the governor that declared Thursday as “George Stratton Day.”

The proclamation was in honor of his years of service to the library system, after he came to Port Angeles in June 1990.

One significant addition during his career was seeing the new library building go up in Port Angeles.

The new building opened in August 1998, and now houses more than 200,000 books.

Stratton began automating the system’s book-tracking system, once housed in long cartons of cards.

Now every volume or tape can be tracked by computer.

The system lets a librarian in Clallam Bay, for instance, reserve a book that is shelved in Forks without having to send the volume through Port Angeles for processing.