In the time it takes to apply lipliner and mascara, Millsaps College President Frances Lucas-Tauchar busted the Barbie myth.

The doll with perfect proportions, a wardrobe to die for and a bevy of Kens lining up to kiss her feet? She doesn't exist.

"One of the things that worries me so much today about young girls is the myth about what's cool - about how you have to look a certain way," Lucas-Tauchar told about 300 Clinton Junior High girls and their mothers Friday at the school's annual "Just Us Girls" breakfast.

"It's the Barbie myth," the Millsaps College president and mother of two elementary-schoolers said. Then, she brought down the house with her characterization of the doll whose price tag starts at about $5.

"If Barbie were anatomically correct, she's so disproportionate that she would have to walk on all fours," Lucas-Tauchar said as girls and their mothers roared. "Something about that delights me."

Her message to the seventh- and eighth- grade girls: Brains, not beauty, if your ticket to success. "Being smart is what is going to get you going," she said. "It's having an incredible mind. This is the beauty that will pay off in your life. And you know what? There's no one alive who really looks like Barbie. So what is real beauty? It's kind words. It's compassion. And let me tell you: Real beauty is being smart, and you don't buy that at the mall."

That's just the message the "True to You and Me" program is meant to convey, said Parent-Teacher-Student Association board member and "Just Us Girls" chairwoman Faith Martin.

Girls in the 12-14 age group need advice on how to maintain self-respect and to choose and be a good role model, Martin said.

"What happens when you lose your self-respect? You do dumb things. You take drugs. You smoke. Now, that's dumb," Lucas-Tauchar told the girls.

They took it to heart.

"You have to think for yourself, and if you want to succeed, you have to believe in yourself," said Christi Positan, 13, a seventh-grader at the school.

Said Joy Jones, 12, also a seventh-grader: "I want to go to college and be successful in business. But without brains, you really can't do anything."

Clinton Junior High counselor Susan Toney, who helped coordinate the program with "Best Friends" character and absitnence education teacher Christi Wall, left the girls and their mothers with a challenge.