PRINCIPAL IS JUST SOAKED WITH STUDENT ENTHUSIASM PHONE-IN RADIO PROGRAM MAKES DEBUT IN LITHUANIA REYNOLDS IS GOING HOME _ TO DO TELEVISION SERIES AUSS

PRINCIPAL IS JUST SOAKED WITH STUDENT ENTHUSIASM PHONE-IN RADIO PROGRAM MAKES DEBUT IN LITHUANIA REYNOLDS IS GOING HOME _ TO DO TELEVISION SERIES AUSSIE PAINTING FETCHES A RECORD $1.05 MILLIONCraftsman Sam Ringland holds an Australian Koala coin freshly struck from specially hardened dies in front of him at the Perth Mint in Australia. The legal tender investment coin, struck from 99.95 percent pure platinum, is the first such coin produced by a major nation.

Principal Dennis Keogh spent a rainy day on the roof of his school because the students at Washington Elementary in Caldwell, Idaho, met his challenge to get their parents more involved in their education.Keogh promised his students in August that he would spend Nov. 2 on the roof if they helped boost the Parent-Teacher Association's membership from 350 to 500 by Nov. 1.

Unfortunately for Keogh, Wednesday was the first day the area received rain in more than a month. Keogh took shelter in a rooftop tent but not before he was soaked setting it up. Teachers had warned him it might snow Nov. 2.

"I thought it was quite humorous," Keogh said of the warning. "But, when I woke up and saw the rain, there were a lot of people laughing and it wasn't me."

Keogh said school maintenance personnel and the school district's assistant superintendent climbed atop the roof to take care of business.

Party and government leaders in Soviet Lithuania have begun answering questions on a weekly phone-in radio program in a further sign of "glasnost" in the Baltic Republic, a Lithuanian journalist said on Thursday.

The first program featured recently appointed Communist Party leader Algirdas Brazauskas, and every Friday either he or senior government members will answer questions on a wide range of topics, the journalist from Lithuanian radio told Reuters.

During his appearance, prolonged beyond the planned 11/4 hours because of the number of questions, Brazauskas, a reformer who is apparently highly popular in Lithuania, spoke on everything from politics and religion to individual problems.

Separately, Moscow Radio reported that Nov. 1, which is celebrated as All-Saints Day in the predominantly Roman Catholic republic, was declared a public holiday by authorities for the first time this year.

Actor Burt Reynolds plans to do a good deed for Palm Beach County, Fla., where he grew up, by setting episodes of a new series there in a move that could boost the local economy.

Reynolds, who lives in the Palm Beach County resort town of Jupiter, plans to return to prime-time television in "B.L. Stryker," a series of six two-hour episodes.