LOCAL GIRL BARES ALL, MAKES GOOD

If you’re a hard-rock aficionado and once frequented a Northwest Highway club called ROXZ, you may have seen her on the dance floor. For two years, it was her favorite hangout. If you saw her, well, you’d probably remember her.

Her name is Pamela Saunders, but to the 15,084,000 readers of Playboy, she became known last month as Miss November (she had been featured last February as one of the magazine’s “Girls of Texas”). She’s a 22-year-old graduate of Piano West High School who lives in a modest apartment in Northeast Dallas and doesn’t look bad in a pair of cowboy boots. Pamela’s charms are displayed in a photo layout entitled “Dealing with Dallas.” That’s on page 96, and those clever Playboy editors just couldn’t resist a little wordplay: “Miss [no independent “Ms.” here] Saunders is hardly a plain ol’ girl from Piano.” Get it?

Miss November gets in touch with herself while lying on a beach, tries to match tan cowboy hats with a skimpy blue top and a gold satin sheet and perches pertly in a window, but the important thing, really, beyond the superficial, is the story, wherein Miss Saunders reveals that she succumbs to strange cravings (“You wake up going, ’Ummm, burrito and hot sauce!”’) and confesses that she had a deathly fear about giving oral reports in high school. She also tells some surprising tales about the Lone Star State: “Girls in Texas who aren’t married five minutes after high school graduation are called spinsters.” (That should be news at The Village.) And, baring her soul, Pamela says that in high school she could never get guys interested in her.

But munching on quesadillas during a recent lunch at Chili’s, Miss Saunders admitted that she didn’t necessarily need anyone new to be interested in her- she’s had a steady boyfriend for the past three years.

“I stick with him. He owns a beer and wine store and gas station in Piano and I work for him part time, making pizzas.”

Does it bother her boyfriend that millions of American men, having finished the story in Playboy and pondered Miss Saunder’s profile, may then gaze longingly at the rest of her? “He doesn’t say much to me, but he says stuff to other people. I think he thinks I’m going to lose interest in him. But I think this draws us closer together because I’m traveling a lot. When I get to see him, I’m really glad to be with him.”

Miss Saunders worked at Poppa’s Porch, a bar in Promenade Center in Richardson, for two years after she graduated from high school. She denies it, but we confirmed that she did a short stint as a topless dancer at the Million Dollar Saloon on Greenville Avenue. As for her intellectual pursuits, Miss Saunders says she’s not interested in college and doesn’t really know what she wants to do for the rest of her life.

“I don’t want to act,” she says. “I’d rather stay in Dallas right now. Hopefully, one day I want to open my own restaurant and bar. I like that line of work. Maybe some commercials or modeling, but I’m not sure.”

A few other little-known facts about Miss November: She was paid $15,000 for her Playmate photos, she had to lose her tan lines for the shoot, she’s wanted to be a Playmate since she was 16 and she hangs out these days at La Bare (“The guys don’t hit on me there.” Working in a bar, says Pamela, has somewhat soured her outlook on men.)

Miss Saunders says that in high school she was always embarrassed to undress, even in front of other girls. No longer. “For some reason-I don’t know why-I didn’t feel uncomfortable posing for Playboy. It’s weird, because in high school I was so shy. After that, I don’t know what happened.”