creating no-linebreak no-html description field

I'd like to include the description in my featured box, but strip html tags and linebreaks for my featured content box.

I'd like to do something like the following, but am not sure what the correct syntax would be.

Any tips on how I would correct this php/smarty to strip html tags and then output the plaintext-description in featured-item.tpl

Code:

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Try to use {$plaintext-description|strip_tags}

Thank you Rudi! You are most awesome!