It was 1986, and Tarrant County Judge Mike Moncrief wanted a keepsake–something by which he could remember his just-deceased grandfather, the legendary Texas wildcatter W.A. “Monty” Moncrief. W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr., Mike’s uncle and the executor of Monty’s estate, allowed Mike and his brother to go through some of the…
New York investment advisor has been arrested for illegal receipt of funds from the Libyan government, in dealings that involved millionaire Dallas developer Trammell Crow and members of his family. Federal authorities last week charged William Bodine, 51, a longtime friend of Crow’s son-in-law, Henry Billingsley. He is being held…
Darrell Jordan is having second thoughts. The Dallas mayoral candidate had promised to join his two top rivals, Ron Kirk and Domingo Garcia, at an April 23 political event at Roosevelt High School in Dallas. The event is an “accountability session”–the first such mayoral-election event organized by Dallas Area Interfaith…
Linda Koop worries that Roderick will miss his stuffed animals. For the past three months, Koop has offered Roderick, a sweet-natured boy just shy of three, a couple of furry critters as bedmates each night. Koop is 31 and unmarried, a real-estate agent selling multi-million dollar homes in the Park…
If you’ve got a smooth, north-south stretch of two-lane blacktop in your neighborhood, you might want to enter it in the race to be the official “NAFTA Highway.” You’ll join a crowded contest to be the road that will carry billions of dollars worth of goods between Mexico, the United…
When Ron and Regina Godbey in January 1992 bought a used charcoal-gray General Motors Silverado pickup, they fell in love. “It was beautiful,” remembers Ron, a skinny 25-year-old insurance salesman. “People used to stop us in the parking lot and ask to look inside.” The Godbeys, who live in a…
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Speaker Jim Wright have more in common than the office and a couple of embarrassing book deals. They’ve got a taxpayer-funded, solid-gold retirement plan that could prove to be a public-relations time bomb for the Georgia budget chopper. Democrats lambasted House Speaker…
On a rainy evening a few days after Christmas, Linda Koop and her friend Rip Parker were handing out food to homeless people near Dallas City Hall. Koop, a 31-year-old single woman who sells multi-million homes in the Park Cities for Ebby Halliday, was tugged by an urge to help…
Every October, Trammell Crow, the legendary Dallas real estate developer, hosts a camp-out for rich and powerful men at his East Texas farm. Crow, now 80, invites about 150 businessmen and government leaders. His guests have included former president Gerald Ford, former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Dallas Cowboys…
If reports that Dallas is booming again are true, the real test might be a stalled downtown housing scheme. After falling months behind schedule, a city-backed plan offering federal loan and tax incentives to transform office buildings into hip apartment dwellings finally has begun to show promise. In December last…
With the program over, the image of a couple enjoying their pots and pans flashes on the TV screen. This is All-Clad cookware, the voice-over informs us, “the great conductor, available at Dillard’s.” Welcome to public television–Dallas style. For decades, public television has billed itself as “listener-supported” and “commercial-free.” But…
Rabbi David Shawel is not an imposing figure. Standing only five feet and four inches, he talks fast and rarely stands or sits in one place for long. But lately it is Shawel who has had powerful grocery chains hopping. Shawel is The Man–that’s The Macher in Yiddish–in Dallas when…
