In one corner: Tom Campitelli, 45 years old, 220 pounds, 6-foot-2, hiding his middle-age spread under baggy shirt and shorts, slow-footed and lacking endurance. In the other: Darla Johnson, 21 years old, 115 pounds, 5-foot-7, with legs up to her collarbone, creamy bronzed skin under tight Lycra bike shorts, and…

When was the last time an adorable child sold you a raffle ticket for some charity fund raiser? When was the last time you actually heard who won the grand prize? Joanne Groshardt, a technical writer in Dallas, recently decided to find out who won the grand prize in a…

Everything, really, was quite perfect. The Women’s Council of The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden was gathering last month in the historic DeGolyer House for its Fall Informal Luncheon, each of the ladies dressed in “casual garden attire,” as their bluebonnet-bordered invitations had instructed. The luncheon tables were whimsically decorated…

Fifty yards from the Fair Park Midway, and mere spitting distance from the landmark Texas Star Ferris wheel, sits a squat, putty-colored building. Modest signs first lead visitors down a narrow alley to the building’s locked back door. It takes more poking around corners and tiptoeing through shrubbery to find…

When last we checked in with Mica England and Ceslie Armstrong, founders of defunct Vary magazine [“Vary messy business,” August 1], both women were strenuously defending their reputations against a Dallas County Court-issued judgment ordering them to pay nearly $40,000 to a graphic designer who claimed he was never paid…

For nearly a year, Dallas graphic designer Steve Cox tried to collect what he was owed for helping produce Vary, a fat and glossy–though very short-lived–magazine featuring high-fashion photo spreads, interviews with supermodels and famous chefs, and slick writing on raves, body piercing, and all manner of pop culture trends…

For more than an hour now, the nice Jewish doctor from New Jersey has stood before a group of 17 people in the sunlit Horizon Unitarian Universalist Church in Carrollton, explaining why he–a urologist whose sole claim to fame is a cure for female incontinence–should be the man to replace…

Mark Linnear Hays sat beside his defense attorney in federal court two weeks ago, arms folded across his chest, face drawn and sullen. So far, it had not been a good day. It was halfway into his trial–U.S. vs. Hays–and a string of forensics experts had spent the morning testifying…

He was a fighting cock like no other, a proud black-and-white without a lick of fear. He took to the pit as if it were his kingdom, his opponent a lowly servant born merely to lay down his life in combat. Roy Bingham can’t say exactly what made his rooster…

Gather a group of McCommas and Monticello Avenue homeowners together, and traffic horror stories flow as steadily as the cars streaming through their neighborhood at rush hour. For decades, commuters heading east and west between Central Expressway and Greenville Avenue have used the M Streets, particularly McCommas and Monticello, as…

The man at the pulpit with the mass of neatly coiffed silver hair is speaking of sin and redemption, pleading with his flock to forgive him his very human frailties. “No one is free from sin,” he says. His eyes have filled with tears. The camera lens zooms in, and…

Sipping coffee at midmorning around Linda Terrell’s kitchen table is strictly a “come as you are” proposition. She hands you a well-worn mug, pours the stout black brew, and asks if you take milk or sugar. No fancy china cream-and-sugar set here. The half-gallon carton of milk is sitting in…

Scrappy, self-assured, and quick with a quip, Dallas defense attorney Tom Mills has spent the better part of his 23-year career defending people charged with wire fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy and insurance fraud, and other white-collar federal crimes. Generally, the guy likes the thrill of a good courtroom fight. On…

Among the parents living in the tidy, peaked-roof cottages of Dallas’ ‘M’ Streets neighborhood, it has been fodder for gossip for months now: How did Pete Sessions, Republican candidate for U.S. Congress, get his 6-year-old son into highly coveted Stonewall Jackson Elementary while living outside the school’s boundaries? Did Sessions,…

Picture a gangly 10-year-old kid–his brown hair tousled, his face dusted with freckles, and looking more than a little like Beaver Cleaver–walking the azalea-lined streets of Highland Park, hawking his own newspaper. He writes the stories and sells the ads, mostly to Highland Park Village merchants thoroughly charmed by the…

It’s barely daybreak on the 1996 political horizon, but maverick Wise County Attorney Stephen Hale is already facing opponents who want to assure his political sunset. Since shortly after taking office in January 1993, Hale, who prosecutes misdemeanor crimes in this rural county of 36,000, about 40 miles north of…

If you are 7-and-a-half years old, halfway through the second grade, and living on a steady diet of CD-ROM and Nickelodeon’s “Weinerville,” very little slips by you. Such is the case with Caitlin, who has already shattered some of the most sacred myths of childhood. First, she is already hip…

In the spartan room that serves as Michael Stiles’ office, the only hint of color is in the former principal’s necktie–a busy pattern of black, white, and brown children dressed in rainbow hues, their hands interlocking like paper dolls on a blue silk background. In contrast, the walls, bookshelves, and…

Darrell Frank appears at the door of his apartment wearing a black baseball cap with a Dead Serious logo–a guitar and bleached cow’s skull. His long, frizzy ponytail is pulled through the back. He ushers his guest past the living room’s big-screen TV, past his wife’s vast collection of stuffed…