ZELIENOPLE — Luann Kapp has always loved cats.

Her family and friends have always gotten her a cat calendar for the holidays, and she can't remember a year when she didn't have a cat-a-day calendar.

So, when she got a letter from Workman Publishing of New York in September that her cat, Lucky Boy, was chosen to be a part of the 365 Cats Page-A-Day Calendar, it came as quite a shock.

That's because she had entered the national calendar contest in 2007, and her beloved cat, a 16-pound orange tabby, had died that same year.

Kapp had read about the contest on the calendar and sent in pictures of Lucky Boy and Stewart, another family cat, to the company.

The contest rules said the cutoff for entry was in February, and if the cat was chosen, the company would contact Kapp and her husband, David, by September.

So when Luann didn't hear anything in September 2007, she figured their cats weren't chosen.

Kapp said she often thought about entering the contest again, but, for one reason or another, never got around to it.

So this past September when a letter came from the calendar company, with a 2012 calendar, it came as quite a surprise.

Lucky Boy was the cat featured on April 3.

“I was ecstatic and shocked that he made it. I started to cry,” Kapp said.

She took the calendar page to the little tombstone in the Kapp's yard where Lucky Boy is buried to show him that he made the calendar.

The letter and Lucky Boy's calendar page are now framed and on the wall in the Kapps' home as a proud award and reminder of what a great cat he was.

Lucky Boy was a stray cat the Kapps rescued from a parking lot near where they lived on Route 68, near Hartmann Road in Jackson Township.

It was dirty and a little thin, she said.

The Kapps already had Stewart in the apartment with them.

Luann and her husband, David, had an argument about what to do with the cat. He speculated that the kitten's mother probably was looking for her missing kitten, so he placed the kitten in a nearby field.

David Kapp, who didn't favor keeping the cat, told his wife he would relent if the animal came to him when called.

The cat came running to them, and Lucky Boy joined Stewart in the Kapp family.

Lucky Boy lived with the Kapps from less than 6 weeks old to his death at 14 years old.

“Lucky Boy was a great cat. He listened better than most dogs,” Luann Kapp said.

The Kapps now have two cats, Cody, 4, and Ziggy, 2.

Stewart died in 2010.