No question about it, Mark Lannoye stands out in a crowd. Even at Mesquite High School, with hundreds of other teenagers vying for each other’s attention, the lanky sophomore catches the eye. At 15, he stands 6 feet 2 inches and sports a shock of blond hair. But his height…
Taking a page from Investigative Reporting 101, former City Councilman Bob Stimson, who is running a heated race for the District 4 County Commissioner seat against incumbent Ken Mayfield, decided to check out rumors about the loosey-goosey way his opponent has allegedly run his office during the last four years…
After a long weekend in Phoenix with officials of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Dallas boosters came home this week facing what may be the toughest challenge some of them have seen in their entire business and civic careers: If they’re serious about bringing the Olympics here in 2012, it looks…
They eat horses, don’t they? I had outgrown my small pony, but was still too little to ride the big thoroughbreds we had, so Mom wanted to buy a large pony for me. We went to a sale in North Carolina very much like the one described in your article…
Certainly, I’ve known failure. In high school, the day I got cut from the varsity football team after the coach told me I had hands like feet; the night of the homecoming dance when my date, on whom I had a terrible crush, informed me she’d agreed to go steady…
In litigation as in politics, fortunes turn suddenly. And since the case of Jones vs. Clinton lies at the crossroads of both, the relative positions of the two sides have been swapping faster than Yankee baseball cards.X X X XXX XNearly two months have passed since President Clinton went on…
By the most superficial look at the site, one wouldn’t think the idea is so bad. Certainly a 63,000-square-foot Albertsons would be more vital than four aging apartment houses and a large stretch of empty ground near the corner of Live Oak Street and Fitzhugh Avenue. But there’s a hitch…
Old times best forgotten First, City Councilwoman Laura Miller made people cry when she suggested the city might have something better to spend $50,000 on than a Veterans Day parade. Now the city is the target of righteous anger by Confederate history buffs. It’s becoming clear why the city hasn’t…
Those scary readers’ picks Reading the Observer’s staff picks for the 1998 Best of Dallas issue [September 24] makes me not want to move away from here so much. Reading the readers’ picks does. Anonymous Via e-mail I saw the mention of Burger’s Lake in your “Best of Dallas” issue…
Alexander Troup leaves you wondering at first. He talks a bit too fast, and his conspiratorial tone can make a listener wary. But once he draws you into the half-forgotten world that has been his hobby and obsession for most of his life–turn-of-the-century Dallas–his enthusiasm is contagious. Looking at a…
On the surface, William Campbell, Ricky Dale Thomas, and Adonis Baxter have little in common. Campbell is the mayor of Atlanta; Thomas is a California short-order cook and onetime petty thief; Baxter is a Richardson High School graduate who was charged with capital murder in the shooting death of a…
Cheryl Craigie, the president and chief executive of the KERA public television and radio stations, admits she just can’t keep it straight. “I always get it wrong,” the 42-year-old executive says. “What is it we promise on air? More programming and less fundraising? Or more fundraising and less programming?” Craigie,…
Slow to anger Finally, someone in the judicial system is a little steamed about Vance Miller, the rich-as-God’s-bookie real estate heir who has spent the last decade saying he’s broke so he can avoid paying some big bills. U.S. District Judge Joe Fish ordered Miller to appear at a September…
As dramas go, last week’s City Plan Commission meeting wasn’t exactly a barn burner, but it was about as close to excitement as a meeting on street widths and railroads is likely to get. Greed. Conspiracy. Suspicion. Think The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as performed by a troupe of…
Michael Capehart likes to talk. If given the chance, this 52-year-old Oak Cliff native will keep you riveted, his lilting voice filling a room, twisting vowels and turning phrases in a way only a native Texan can. And talking is what he’s been doing these days, as often and as…
Dallas Observer reporter Jim Schutze is claiming The Dallas Morning News “subtly misrepresented” remarks Schutze made to Morning News reporter Robert Ingrassia last week in response to questions for a story Ingrassia was reporting about a full-page ad in the Morning News that contained the complete text of a story…
Whose betrayal? I’ll admit it. I’m something of a Jim Schutze fan. Jim usually brings a fresh perspective to the stories he covers. He is not a run-of-the-mill reporter; he usually does his research and presents a balanced, well-reasoned article. In addition to that, he is my neighbor, and I…
On a gentle hillside 30 miles east of Dallas, out in the countryside near Kaufman, Bailey Kemp pulls his one-ton pickup and 40-foot stock trailer up to a steel-covered horse barn and begins to unload. First he shoos from his rig 10 ordinary-looking bays. Then a palomino. Then he guides…
After three and a half years, hundreds of thousands of dollars shelled out in attorneys’ fees by both sides, and countless trips to the appeals court in New Orleans, at least one part of the legal brawl between federal Judge John H. McBryde and his fellow jurists appears to be…
No strings attached? Buzz likes trees. Buzz likes plants. Some of our most memorable moments–well, not memorable, but enjoyable, anyway–come from plants. So we’re as happy as anyone to hear that the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens has completed plans for a $16 million expansion, funded largely with private donations…
Failing all children In the September 10 issue, your cover story “Some fly, some die: How DISD betrays children of color,” by Jim Schutze, was mistitled. Based on the numbers within the article, DISD is failing all children. This is not a racial issue. Even the last sentence of the…
By any measure, January 16, 1998, was a historic day for the state of Texas. At the federal courthouse in Texarkana, Attorney General Dan Morales announced the multibillion-dollar settlement he’d brokered with the tobacco industry–money that would flow directly into state, county, and hospital-district coffers for legislators and local government…
