Four-year-old Megan Jennings may have met the future First Lady of the United States on Wednesday afternoon when Hadassah Lieberman stopped by her Head Start class in Beaufort.

Hadassah, the wife of Connecticut senator and former vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, carried her husband's Democratic presidential campaign into Beaufort County after a stop in Charleston earlier in the day.

She said one of her husband's goals is to put more money into Head Start programs, which are funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"Too often we miss the point," she said. "We have to fund these programs in order for our children to have a healthy start in school."

After hearing about cuts to First Steps, a state program that prepares children for the first grade, Lieberman said this is exactly what her husband doesn't want to see happen on the national level.

Since 2002, the amount of state money for Beaufort County First Steps has been slashed dramatically -- from more than $1 million down to about $380,000 this year.

Lieberman congratulated the Burroughs Avenue center's staff on their work. The center, housed in the Human Services office of the Beaufort County School District, is one of 11 sites in the two counties which serve 460 students from birth to age 4.

Tony Jones, male involvement specialist at the center, said Lieberman's visit meant a lot to the students, some of whom come from disadvantaged families. Even though the meeting was brief, he said it "says to them that an adult feels like they're special."

Lieberman outlined a list of her husband's goals if he is elected to replace President George Bush in November:

Fully funding the No Child Left Behind Act;

Creating a National Partner-ship for School Investment to target new resources to disadvantaged school systems and help the neediest schools attract and keep high quality teachers;

Provide new resources to raise high school completion rates, especially among minorities; and

Build on the existing federal after-school programs and promote more intensive summer programs.

Lieberman's visit comes in advance of South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary on Feb. 3. Her husband skipped the Iowa caucuses this week and is campaigning in New Hampshire for that state's primary Tuesday.