BEST & WORST 1996

CALL IT THE REBOUND YEAR. RETAILERS WERE booming, stores were opening, and in a flash, Dallas-Fort Worth was no longer the Valley of Death. The much-anticipated turnaround happened with such suddenness that nobody quite believed it. But happen it did-giving us a whole new assortment of winners and losers, saints and sinners, discoveries and disasters, all in time to celebrate the New Year. #1 WORST

The Cowboys: Too Much, Too Often.

BY RENEE HOPKINS

OUR COWBOYS ARE NO SAINTS, THAT’S for sure, and frankly nobody really expects them to be. After all, the roster of players arrested for drug or sex offenses over the years includes such big names as Lance Rented, Rafael Septien, John Niland, Hollywood Henderson and Bob Hayes. Off-the-field frolicking has come to seem almost normal in a sport played by men with egos and appetites as enormous as their talents.

Until this year. Even the most forgiving of Cowboys fans have to admit: This is the year it went too far.

The Dallas Cowboys are suffering a moral meltdown. They’ve had seven drug-related suspensions in two years, while the rest of NFL teams combined have had just 13. They snorted, coked, hinged, whored and sped their way through the off-sea-son-with nary a discouraging word from Coach Barry Switzer or owner Jerry Jones. No surprise in that, since fish are known to rot from the head down.

By Dec. 4, when the NFL slapped a year’s suspension on defensive lineman Leon Lett for violating league drug policy, media and fan fingers were starting to point at Jones and Switzer-not because each has a well-known penchant for partying himself, and not even because they’ve turned their heads from the sleaze and refused to police their offending Super Bowl defenders.

Bad enough that Switzer\s most cogent comment on the situation-“I don’t wanna know. I never wanna know”-shows that he learned nothing about leadership from the turmoil of his University of Oklahoma days, when he was run out of Norman not because he was losing but because his play ers were amassing longer rap-sheet stats than yardage gains.

Switzer’s example is hardly shining- after all, here is a man who had a yearslong affair with his best friend’s wife-but the blame for this mess lies primarily with Jerry Jones, He sets the tone for the team- period. And it is his mandate that flows directly down through the Cowboys organization to the players themselves: Show up straight and ready to play each week, win at any cost, then reward yourself as you please, just don’t get caught-but if you do, Jones’ lawyer or your own will find the technicality, bend the rules to get you off scot-free and ready to do battle on the glory field once more.

Michael Irvin’s 30th birthday party, held in an Irving hotel room in March, featured topless dancers, marijuana and cocaine- and the police. But instead of simply accepting that he had been caught and pleading guilty in plenty of time to get his head cleared for training camp, Irvin and his attorneys danced through 10 days with a grand jury hoping to avoid indictment, then insisted on going to trial.

The local and national news fed us scenes of Number 88 showing up for court in sunglasses and a mink coat that would have embarrassed a pimp, and then came endless tales of topless dancers and prostitutes, a contract on Irvin’s life from the jealous boyfriend (who happened to be a cop) of one of the topless dancers, and allegations of witness-tampering.

All the while, Irvin had to defend himself against his second paternity suit since 1990, as All-Pro lineman Nate Newton complained to reporters that the “white house” near the Cowboys Valley Ranch headquarters was a “responsible” way to “run whores in and out.” Finally, Irvin pleaded no contest and took his suspension-a result that could have been achieved quickly and with a little dignity had he simply pleaded guilty at the start.

The very day a story lauding Deion Sanders for his family values was published. Sanders’ wife filed for divorce, alleging adultery, showing a side of Sanders he had managed to keep from (he writer. Carolyn Sanders eventually dropped the case, but not before Neon Deion gave a very Jerry Jones-1 ike explanation for his behavior-he and Carolyn had not actually been married for six years, merely living together and bearing children, so any sexual liaison that occurred before the actual wedding date in March wasn’t technically cheating.

With his genius at marketing and dealmaking, Jones has built the Cowboys organization into a colossal moneymaker and the team into three-of-four Super Bowl champions. What Jones fails to understand, however, is that not only does style sometimes trump substance, rumors always outpace reputation.

And that is what has happened in 1996 to the Cowboys-the off-field shenanigans and subsequent petty attempts at damage control and at escaping punishment by exploiting legal technicalities have finally suited up and joined the ’Boys on the playing field.

The carnage: Michael Irvin, one of the team’s best offensive players, out for five games at the beginning of the season. On the defense, Shante Carver out for six games and Leon Lett, star defensive tackle, lost for an entire year, starting with the crucial pre-playoff games early in December.

The Cowboys had only a barely winning season record going into the playoffs. For Pete’s sake, the Cowboys lost to the New York Giants in November, not only a hated rival but a team that hasn’t seen even a moderately successful season in years.

Fans and the press have raised a hue and cry over Jones’ business decisions: the Pepsi and Nike marketing deals; the lawsuits and countersuits between Jones and the NFL; his pushing of the salary cap as far as it would bend; and finally, Jones’ extension of Lett’s five-year, $12.8 million contract despite his second NFL drug violation suspension.

The murmurings through the years from newspaper columnists and fans on sports talk shows proved to be much more than just disgruntled mumblings from disenchanted fans who abhor Jones and Switzer and want Tom Landry back. These murmurings were the sound of foreshadowing, of the certain dread for what was bound to happen, for what is here now: the winter of our discontent with America’s Team-the Dallas Cowboys.

# 1 BEST The Rangers: Finally a Happy Ending

BY MIKE SHROPSHIRE

FROM A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, THE Texas Rangers baseball franchise had provided a quarter-century’s worth of classic drama. One year, Greek tragedy; the next, Shakespearean farce. Artistically, the results never varied. The end of the season consistently found the team in a face-down-in-the-gutter posture. It remains surprising that Joan Baez never sang some song about the most lachrymose team in all of ball. The years passed like wounded animals and the Rangers never experienced the taste of postseason play. With a talent base less suited for the American League than the American Legion, why should they?

Rangers followers, the ones who had supported the team since its arrival in Arlington from Washington in 1972, experienced emotional trauma. Shattered marriages. Financial calamity. Annoying physical difficulties like hair loss and amnesia. True, the 1996 roster from spring training looked promising this time. The starting rotation, anchored by Ken Hill, seemed decent enough. The everyday lineup- featuring Juan Gonzalez, Dean Palmer, Will Clark, Rusty Greer and company- provided run-scoring potential. Pudge Rodriguez was demonstrating Baseball Hall of Fame skills behind home plate.

The fans, however, had seen this plot line before. Sure, sure. It’s a pretty good book but everybody gets killed in the end. The Rangers sprinted from the starting gate of the regular season with a 7-0 record. The team appeared unbeatable. “Right,” said the fans. “So did George Armstrong Custer and the Titanic.”

One Friday night against Baltimore, the Rangers did something interesting. They scored 16 runs in the eighth inning and won the game, 26-7. Sixteen runs in one inning! There had been seasons when 16 runs constituted a half-month’s ration. ’This is fun,” said the fans. “But it won’t last.”

The Rangers breezed into the All-Star break in first place. “We’ve seen this routine before,” said the fans. “Here comes the old choke-eroo.” Mid-August arrived with the Rangers still comfortably leading Seattle. When the Rangers-trailing 6-1 at Cleveland-came back to win in the 10th inning, 10-8, on a Greer home run, the mood of the fans shifted from fatalistic to skeptical. While the fans might not be fighting for seats on the Rangers bandwagon, they cautiously began creeping out of the closet.

By Sept, 10, the Rangers’ lead over Seattle had expanded to nine games. The team, however, began demonstrating symptoms of fatigue from the long season. That was understandable, after hauling 25 years’ worth of bad baggage down the home stretch. Disaster struck in Seattle, where the Rangers lost four in a row. The nine-game lead had shrunk to two. “1 need a drink,” said the fans. “Pass the Drano.” Heroically, the Rangers responded by winning six of their final eight games, thus clinching the American League Western division. The atmosphere at The Ballpark in Arlington reached the intensity level of a Texas-OU game,

Manager Johnny Oates and his Little Red Machine lost a gut-wrenching playoff series to the cultural icons of the sport, the New York Yankees. In retrospect, that was probably for the best. For the breathless Rangers fans, a voyage to the World Series would have been too much too soon.

What mattered was that the franchise emancipated itself from an era of dismal history that dated back to Richard Nixon’s first term in office. Now that the albatross is buried, the Rangers in the postseason should become a habitual scenario. The best sports story of ’96 might well be become the best sports story of the decade. WORST FORM OF FLATTERY:

THE HEWS STEALS OUR “THUMBS”

Rena Pederson is manager of an editorial page whose dullness of style is only exceeded by its predictability of opinion. Reaching for a new idea, she characteristically failed to find one. So instead, she stole our popular “Thumb” awards, a D institution since 1975. Worst of all, after stealing our idea, The News ruined it by making its thumbs as tepid as its editorials. C’mon, Rena. Thumb with gusto or dont thumb at all.

BEST PROOF THAT THE 15TH TIME IS A CHARM

Dallas Cowboys great Mel Renfro, the only Ring of Honor member not in the Hall of Fame, finally made it on his 15th try.

BEST PUBLIC OFFICIAL

Lee Jackson: Thoughtful, Informed and Decisive

IN HIS 20 YEARS AS A PUBLIC SERVANT- the past 10 years as Dallas County Judge-Lee Jackson has distinguished himself as a hard worker and a calm voice of reason in a sometimes loud and unwieldy county government. At 46, he is known as the rare politician who puts partisanship aside in order to build consensus and forge compromises. After the Commissioners Court voted last year to stop using county money to pay for condoms and needle sterilization kits, Jackson was criticized when a state agency threatened to pull funding for badly needed AIDS prevention programs. But Jackson was praised by all sides for working out a compromise that allowed the court to uphold its policy, but also allowed County Health Department workers to continue doing what they thought they ought to do.

Parkland Hospital CEO Ron Anderson, who worked behind the scenes with Jackson on the compromise, describes him as a “visionary” who does his homework before making decisions on an issue. “The judge is a person who waits until the facts come in and then has the courage to act on them when he gets them;’ says Anderson.

Jackson also was the first to seriously tackle the issue of surface transportation in Dallas County back in 1987 when nobody else was paying attention, by forming innovative programs to study the problem and lobbying his former colleagues at the Stale Legislature (where he served five terms) to fund regional transportation projects. His achievements are numerous: Under his leadership, the county has added specialized courts to prosecute drug and domestic violence cases, provided diversion programs for mentally ill offenders, and now is building a new juvenile center. He’s proud of the fact that after eight years of overcrowding in the county jails, the county now has ample space to house inmates.

Growing up in Oak Cliff, Jackson knew he wanted to be a public servant. When his friends were saying they wanted to be quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Jackson was watching Lyndon B. Johnson on televisor) and thinking he could be a better pres-ident. ’it was always public policy and working out compromises with people with different goals and backgrounds that fascinated me as a teenager,” he says. Jackson went on to major in political science in college and earn a graduate degree in public administration. In the Legislature, Jackson was known as the guy who explained the bill so you’d vote for it, rather than pontificate about it, says County Commissioner Jim Jackson.

Programs like Dallas County MHMR, transportation and the Juvenile Department are unglamorous projects that often do not show a payback for about 10 to 20 years, says Jackson, but that’s what he revels in. “I like the challenge of seeing if a program is better when you finish with it than when you started,” he says. “Changes can be made. That’s what gives real job satisfaction.”

Parkland’s Anderson says Dallas can’t keep Jackson down on the farm for long. “I see him in Congress one day soon-he’s a Republican and I’m a Democrat, but I’d vote for him,” says Anderson. *’I think with men like him in Congress we’d have less gridlock. It’s sweet and sour though, for me-while I think he’s destined for greater things, I’d hate to lose him.”

WORST ADVENTURES IN PARENTING

A Dallas baby sitter sued a 4-year-old and his parents, claiming that the tot crushed her larynx, leaving her unable to speak for four months. Erica Bailey, 21, contended that Conner Schaars hit her in the throat in anger when she wouldn’t join him in a game of checkers. She asked for $177,000 in damages.

WORST POLITICAL COMMENTARY

During an appearance by Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan at tin: University of Dallas, Arlington resident Nickolas Owens, 34, was arrested for following the Feisty One’s motorcade on campus and refusing to pull over at the order of a police officer. In Owens’ vehicle, police found a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun on the front seat; in the trunk, they found a 5-gallon can of gasoline and components that could be used in an explosive device. Ever true to his candidate’s stance on gun control, Tom Staley, North Texas chairman of the Buchanan campaign, said that the police could have overreacted. “I transport guns all the time,” Staley said. “People go on college campuses all the time because they’re duck hunting.” Yep, that was one mighty big duck.

WORST PUBLIC OFFICIAL

Kathlyn Gilliam: Racist, Hateful and Dumb

FOR 24 YEARS-24 years!-she has used her seat on the Dallas School Board as a weapon against educators, parents, administrators, fellow board members and anyone else who even halfheartedly has tried to make the public schools work. Combining meanness with stupidity, as one observer put it, she has stirred the racial cauldron, boiling up an ever-frothy stew of divisiveness, anger and hostility.

Of course, she does it all for the children. “We have to be vigilant and persistent about seeing to it that we provide the best opportunities for our children,” The News recently quoted her as saying. Her vigilance and persistence have produced spotty results. Whites appalled at the breakup of neighborhood schools and put off by the bickering and racial mau-mauing instigated by Gilliam have tied the district, leaving the public schools almost totally resegregated. Middle-class blacks appalled by the deterioration of educational standards and equally put oft by the bickering she’s caused, have sought better choices for their children in districts such as DeSoto, Duncanville and as far away as Grapevine. The effect of this brain drain on Gilliam’s district in South Dallas has been spiraling urban decay. To think: All of this carnage has been wreaked by one person in less than a quarter-century.

But frightening off the whites and the BELYING THE NOTION THAT PEOPLE don’t like theater that challenges them and makes them think, the Dallas Theater Center had a two-way hit- both in terms of reviews and seat sales- with its staging of the two parts of Angels In America. Billed as playwright Tony Kushner’s “Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” the play tackled politics, sexuality, spirituality, religion and the very idea of community.

The DTC did justice to Kushner’s work in its spring production of Part I, Millennium Approaches and a fall production of Part II, Perestroika. The two productions were technical and artistic tours de force- each actor played several different parts, black middle class is not enough for Gilliam. She’s now turned her guns on the Hispanics. whose children by default have become the district’s ethnic majority. Small wonder that acting superintendent Yvonne Gonzales is angling for a job in the Clinton administration; she’s had time to see how superintendents fare when Gilliam gets into high gear.

“Worst Public Official” could be for Gilliam a lifetime award, because the destruction of Dallas Public Schools has been for her a lifetime’s work. And despite her best efforts, the lasting effects have been surprisingly colorblind: Black children, white children and brown children have suffered equally. Maybe next year we should celebrate all the people of all races who have served with her on the school board over all these years. That the Dallas public schools function at all-and more suprisingly, even seems to be making progress-is a testament to what men and women of good will can accomplish, even in the face of constant and unwavering evil. and Ming Cho Lee’s minimalist set required actors to move wheeled pieces of scenery in and out. The quick-hit short scenes and the parade of actors in more and more roles, built the drama piece by piece, weaving the philosophy and human joy and suffering into a cohesive whole.

The highlight of both productions was Sally Nystuen’s star turn in Part II as the Angel. Nystuen’s masterful presence and Kushner ’s commanding dialogue for her- the Angel referred to herself in not just the “royal we” but in a stacked, multiple “we” as “I, I, I, I”-played off the sweet angel stereotypes we’ve been stuck with lately to create an arrogant, spoiled angel who wants the humans to be still so God will pay more attention to His original creations. Nystuen’s portrayal and Kushner’s dialogue left the audience with a sense of God as Wizard of Oz-don’t watch the man behind the curtain-and the ultimate message that much of our destiny is in our own hands.

WORST ELECTION-YEAR PROMOTION

Fort Worth’s Ultimate Paintball invited kids to participate in a special role-playing game called “Kill the President.” Kids armed with plastic rifles that shoot dye-filled pellets took on the guise of “assassins” and were assigned to execute a player designated as the president of the United States.

WORST NEW CAREER FOR FORMER CITY OFFICIALS

Two robbers wearing ski masks and University of Texas Longhoms wind-breakers robbed the Commercial State Bank in Ferris in late January after stealing a getaway car from elderly women visiting a gravesite and phoning in a decoy bomb threat to Ferris High School. The heist ended in a wild highspeed chase and running gun battle, with the robbers throwing roofing nails out the car window to puncture police car tires. Residents were shocked to discover the accused robbers were Forest Hill’s Acting City Manager and former fire chief Paul Albert Philbin, 58, and the town’s former fire marshal and code inspector Ronald Ray D’Burke, 44. O’Burke was killed in the shoot-out; Philbin, seriously injured, confessed from his hospital bed that the two had robbed not only the Ferris bank but one in Cedar Hill. Police said the two men shared an interest in gambling.

WORST CULTURAL OVERKILL

Sun & Star 1996: Too Big For Its Own Good

AMBITON IS WHAT WE liked about Sun & Star 1996, the 100-day celebration of all things Japanese that brought to the Dallas-Fort Worth area art treasures. Kabuki dancers, theater, fireworks and music. But ambition is also what sank it.

The festival’s stated purpose was to bridge two very different civilizations and to help Americans understand the culture of the country that is our largest trading partner. The consensus: Many single events were worthwhile and some were first-class. But the sheer bulk of events and the inability of the festival’s organizers to guide the audience through its encounters with the Japanese culture, the lack of an overview that would make the experience meaningful for the average person, led to what amounted to a wholesale dumping of Japanese culture on an unprepared citizenry. In the end, and perhaps inevitably considering its funding, the festival played out more as an exercise in corporate marketing than as a true celebration of another nation’s heritage.

“A total washout, at least musically” was the harsher assessment of Dallas Morning News music critic John Ardoin. “Nobody gave any thought to the thing,” he explained, calling it “a parade across Japanese culture.” How does a Japanese conductor leading an orchestra in Mendelssohn or Beethoven celebrate the Japanese culture? Or the participation of Japanese designers in an opera by an American composer of a Shakespearean play (The Tempest)”! Or enlisting Sony’s CEO to conduct the Dallas Symphony, which, as Ardoin mused in his DMN review, gave the appearance of Sony’s renting the symphony for the event?

Many observers lauded Sun & Star for the quality of the individual events. The Tempest, in only its third staging anywhere, confirmed once again the Dallas Opera’s reputation as one of the nation’s best companies. “Spectacular” was the verdict of Fort Worth Star-Telegram art critic Janet Tyson on the Dallas Museum’s “Momoyama.”

Yet many art observers report “Momoyama” left them cold (even while one recalled seeing a Japanese visitor near him weep at the sight of his country’s treasures). The lack of historical reference left most Western visitors more puzzled than moved by works they could not really understand even if they could technically admire. “Contrast it with an exhibition of Renaissance paintings,” said one. “They inform our entire way of seeing the world, and to revisit them is to refresh our understanding of how we came to be what we are. The Japanese works may be wonderful, but to us they are essentially meaningless.”

And then there was the sheer volume of Sun & Star events. Getting every cultural institution in the region involved may have seemed like a good idea, but when it comes to cross-cultural events, perhaps the adage “less is more” is really true. As Janet Tyson said, “People are just looking to go out and do things, and suddenly everything has a Japanese theme.” In the end. Sun & Star was a Neiman’s Fortnight that seemed to have spun out of control.

WORST LOSS OF A MEDIA WATCHDOG

The forced resignation of Peter Elkind as editor of the Dallas Observer also spelled the demise of his cranky, often on-target column BeloWatch, which chronicled the inside foibles of the ever-burgeoning Belo

Corporation and its mother ship, The Dallas Morning News. Yes, Elkind could be mean-spirited and more than a little self-righteous. But BeloWatch often reported information on the city’s Only Daily that said daily wasn’t likely to cough up itself- news that will be missed by the many who care about getting the news right in Dallas.

WORST RELIGIOUS COMMENTARY

Dallas’ Trinity Foundation, a religious watchdog group, took over a 25-year satiric religious magazine called The Door, which has about 10,000 subscribers and loses about $30,000 a year. Editor Ole Anthony described the staffs philosophy simply. “We sit around and ask ourselves, ’Is there anybody we couldn’t go after?’ And that’s who we go after.” Thus their first cover subject: Mother Theresa, for a story on the year’s 10 biggest religious “losers” called “Honey, I Shrunk the Nun.”

BEST LAW ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVE

Lawyers: No Longer Above the Law

TO THE DISTRESS OF MANY in the legal establishment, 1996 marked the year Dallas lawyers went to jail. About time, we say.

You might be thinking of Joseph Chavis, Jr., the young attorney who went to prison last spring for robbing a University Park bank. But Chavis committed a spectacularly public (and inept) crime; we’re talking about the more ordinary crimes that everyone knows go on-but no one does anything about.

Lawyers have long enjoyed a kind of hands-off treatment by the law enforcement community. After all, attorneys make the system work. Prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers push the (really bad) clients through the pipeline. A certain amount of professional courtesy is inevitable. And everyone knows that today’s prosecutor might be tomorrow’s district attorney-or even one’s own defense attorney.

But that also means that some lawyers get away with everything short of murder. {Think about the billion-dollar S&L debacle of the ’80s. Yeah, a gaggle of real estate developers and bankers went to jail, but who was drawing up the legal documents that allowed them to bilk the public?)

In February, 201RS agents began a massive inquiry into tax violations of North Texas attorneys in three fields: personal injury, criminal defense and real estate. An analysis of the 1989 through 1995 tax returns of 6,566 solo practitioners revealed that in one year, about 4,100 lawyers who filed returns didn’t pay the taxes they owed; 39 percent declared an adjusted gross income under the poverty level of $14,335-suspiciously low for a profession that charges as much as $500 an hour merely for a consultation. And in 1994,162 lawyers didn’t bother to file tax returns at all. Altogether, area lawyers owed the small sum of $40 million in taxes.

Of course, the attorneys had good excuses. The most popular: “I’m too busy.”

The ongoing investigation already has sent an umber of area attorneys to Club Fed: Robert Rose, David Burrows and Scott M. Anderson have been convicted on tax violations. John Rowland Trice and David Lee Whaley were convicted on other federal charges. When the grapevine got wind of the 1RS investigation, other scofflaw attorneys quietly began making their way to the Federal Building to settle their tax debts.

“A law license is not a license to steal,” says U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins. ’There’s no professional courtesy where criminal violations are involved.” Now if he could just do something about those plaintiff attorney TV ads.

BEST POLITICAL EXCUSE

Transcripts of City Council meetings on the Cinemark debacle revealed former Mayor Steve Bartlett’s use of what one attorney called “the nooky defense.” Bartlett, who had originally supported the Cinemark project, changed his mind, saying that his wife “would stop sexual relations” with him if the giant theater were built.

WORST ADVENTURES IN NAPPING

After midnight one evening in February, a resident near the small town of Seven Points called police when he discovered a car in his driveway, with two men passed out drunk in the front seats. The man in the driver’s seat had a rifle across his lap and was sitting on a pistol. Authorities also found another pistol, assorted sex toys, a mannequin head and an iced-down package that was labeled “Danger. High Explosive.” Police called in an Army bomb squad, which used a robotic device to detonate the explosives in a pasture. The explosion shook houses 4 miles away and presumably woke up Tommy Ray Steele, 31, and Perry Wayne Cox, 35, who were promptly arrested and taken to jail, where they could get some real sleep.

WORST GENTRIFICATION PROJECT

Communities Foundation: For Dallas or Against It?

ONE OF THE MOST CHARMING BLOCKS of Uptown is threatened with destruction. Ironically, a foundation created and developed to make Dallas a better place may do the destroying.

The Communities Foundation of Texas bought the block-bounded by Cedar Springs, Routh, Howell and Fairmount streets-and so far has continued leasing the property to thriving businesses and hotspots like Sasso Art To Go, Matthew Trent jewelers, Martini Ranch, Ruggeri’s Ristorante and Arcodoro/Pomodoro.

But the Foundation, a $328 million philanthropic clearinghouse that funnels $25 million from wealthy donors to nonprofits and charities each year, has cast a covetous eye toward the location for itself. Ed Fjordbak, president of CFT, thinks the location would be perfect for offices housing not only his organization, but also other nonprofits and charities, a move that would create a veritable block of do-gooders.

’it’s the best area in town for businesses,” declares Fjordbak, who apparently sees no irony in wiping oui the small businesses that have made it such a lively part of town. But who wouldn’t rather lounge in the shadow of the Crescent than spend each day in an office on the east end of Live Oak Street, where the foundation is currently located. Fjordbak claims his donors would feel safer in Uptown. “If enough clients suggest we move, then we’ll move,” he says.

Michael Morris, owner of Martini Ranch, would rather stay where he is,

“We spent a lot of money to rehab a building so we could be in that area,” he says. “’I think most of the people in Dallas would rather go to the art gallery, eat Italian at Ruggeri’s, have a beer with me than drive by and see Communities’ offices.”

Paula Scholz, manager of Ruggeri’s, doesn’t welcome change, either “This area has been around since 1939, and it has a lot of charm,” she says. “It’s so sad we might have to reconstruct it somewhere else.”

When the foundation bought the land in 1993, it warned tenants that the buildings might be torn down. Current leases expire in December 1997. and Fjordbak acknowledges that by July, the tenants may then be given six months to vacate. But he stresses that the decision to demolish has not yet been made.

For someone who claims to have not made a decision, Fjordbak can get fairly specific in talking about a possible new building.

“It will not be a square glass building,” Fjordbak says, “a blob cookie-cutter that’s thrown up, If and when this project happens, it will be because the community wants it to happen.”

The community? Or Communities?

BAD DOMESTIC RELATIONS

Iman Yahya Abdullah, leader of the Dallas Masjid of Al-lslam. Dallas’ largest African-American mosque, and his wife, Aracetis Abdullah, were arrested and charged with misdemeanor family violence assault after an argument that left a cut on his left wrist and scratches on her neck. Abdullah, who said he called 911 because he didn’t want the argument to lead to violence, was an organizer of Dallas Kindness Week.



WORSE DOMESTIC RELATIONS

A Tarrant County jury ruled that Pauline Nichols could not evict her 87-year-o(d mother, Urene Ray, from her home of 22 years. Mrs. Ray, who pays $500 a month rent, argued that her daughter had agreed to allow her to live in the home the rest of her life. Nichols, of Crowley, said she wanted her mother out of the house, which she owns, “because it’s my property.”

WORST EXAMPLE OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

Carlos Aguilar, a reporter for KDFW (Channel 41, ?as charged with evading arrest after Highland Park police officers tried to ticket him for jogging in the middle of the street Aguilar, 49, accused the HP police of harrassing him and said he refused to speak English during his arrest and five-hour stay at the jail because “when the stress level gets high for me, I get in a survival mode.” Aguilar had moved to Dallas when a Houston station declined to renew his contract because he had been charged with assaulting two police officers after crossing police crime scene tape and with disorderly conduct for stripping while covering a story about nudists.

BEST CORPORATE CITIZEN EDS: Leading the Way

OUR SURVEY OF CIVIC AND CULTURAL institutions to name the one best corporate citizen in Dallas-Fort Worth produced many accolades for many companies. Every source cited specific projects that would not have happened without a business that got behind it. But one name came up time and time again, even after our participants touted the merits of their own particular benefactors. “Be sure to say something about EDS.” “But it all got started because of EDS.” “Remember EDS.” “EDS was first to step up to the plate. “Please give credit to EDS.” Those are direct quotes.

EDS is a worldwide company. Less than 2 percent of its business comes from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and only 11 percent of ils employees work here. So the scope and reach of its huge charitable and civic undertakings here have little effect on its bottom line. If EDS did nothing, and if everybody in Dallas knew it did nothing, and if everybody in Dallas resented its doing nothing, the effect on EDS would be negligible.

So why does EDS expend so much time and money on matters that have so little to do with its bottom line? “It does have to do with our bottom line, because in essence it comes down to our definition of ourselves as a company,” says Executive Vice President John Castle. “EDS aspires to be the leader in our industry, and that means our people have to be leaders. Leaders cannot be contained. And with leadership comes responsibility. Every leader knows that. If we did nothing or if we did just enough to get by, we would be lying to ourselves about our own fundamental définition of who we want to be. You can’t build a great company by lying to yourselves. If you want to lead, you must lead.”

But why does EDS seem to go out of its way to encourage its employees to be involved in cultural and civic endeavors’? ’”Because it builds morale,” says Castle.

’Employees-not only in Dallas but around the world-know they have the power to affect the communities they live in because the company will back them up. Something needs to change? The EDS message to our people is: Go change it. All your colleagues are behind you. What’s true for the 42 countries we operate in is doubly true for the city we headquarter in.”

Les Alberthal became CEO of EDS in 1986 when it was owned by General Motors. What CEO has faced a greater challenge? Here was the company founded by one of the world’s most driven, and opinionated, entrepreneurs, now managed by the world’s largest private-sector bureaucracy. The hangovers from the past (including a lawsuit against founder Ross Perot), the clash of corporate cultures and the frustrations of trying to survive in the Wild West of the fast-moving computer industry while operating under an ownership steeped in the traditions of the slow-moving automotive industry would have led anyone with any sense to predict EDS’ demise years ago, as most people with any sense did. Instead, Alberthal has overseen growth from $4,4 billion 10 years ago to $14 billion today, while skillfully manu-veuring his company back to full independence.

The point of recalling EDS’ achieve-merits under Alberthal is to suggest a standard. Alberthal believes in leadership as a concept and as a mission, and, as Castle puts it, “leadership cannot be contained.” Many companies in Dallas strive to contribute to this community. If we were to take this space to recite EDS’ many contributions we would inevitably slight others who in many specific cases have done just as much, and that’s not our point. EDS is our Best Corporate Citizen not only for the good works that it does, but also-and perhaps in the long run, more important, for the philosophy that underlies the good works that it does. Under Les Alberthal, EDS has learned an old lesson: You cannot have what you do not give. It has taken that ancient principle and applied it to the modern concept of business leadership. By doing that, it has transformed itself, and every day remakes our city.

WORST GRASP OF THE OBVIOUS

Only after Dallas resident Lauretta Adams was turned down for hundreds of jobs did she begin to consider cutting her carefully cultivated and polished natural nails, which ranged in length from 11 to 28 inches. “I expected to have some problems finding a job,” Adams said, “but I never thought it would come to this.”

WORST WAR STORY

A front-page color photo accompanying a story about veterans on Memorial Day in The Dallas Morning News showed a disheveled man identified as veteran Roni DeJoseph, wearing miliary fatigues adorned with numerous medals and unit patches, weeping in sorrow at a local replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall-the epitome of the traumatized Vietnam vet. Morning News editors were forced to print a Page Two correction after discovering that DeJoseph was wearing a commercially-made imitation of a Vietnam-era bush hat and a “cammie” jacket that was first issued in 1983-long after the war ended-and had not served in the United States armed forces in Vietnam or any where else.

WORST CORPORATE CITIZENS

Caltex, CompuCom, CompUSA, Halliburton, Quaker

State: In Their Own Little Worlds

AS BUSINESSES THEY MAY BE FIRST-class. Their reputations in theiR industries and around the world may be sterling. But as citizens in their own hometown, they are decidedly second-rate, with reputations in the dirt. And all because they choose to be.

Every cultural and ci vie organization has heard their excuses-that is, when they even bother to return phone cal Is. “Our customers are spread all over the globe.” “We don’t have that many employees here.” “Our commitment has to be to shareholders first,” Every one of those statements could be made by a JCPenney or an American Airlines or an EDS. Yet while those companies choose to make their presence and their influence felt in their headquarters city, our Worst Corporate Citizens seemingly could not care less.

When we called for information about its charitable contributions, Halliburton said it wouldn’t give it out. “We haven’t given it out in the past, and I’m sure that we would not now,” said a spokeswoman in CEO Dick Cheney’s office. CompuCom’s answer was almost identical- “That is information we do not disseminate. It’s confidential,” was the answer from CFO Bob Boutin’s office. Apparently these companies are as little concerned about their public images as they are about their civic responsibilities. The other companies we contacted in our survey were eager to supply us with lists of their good deeds. Maybe that’s because they had some.

To their credit, Quaker State, Caltex and CompUSA each made an effort. Unfortunately, the results-when they finally came in-hardly seemed worth it.

But let’s cut to the chase. Why should a large multinational company bother with its hometown? What role should a major company play in civic affairs?

These are questions you can put to our Worst Corporate Citizens yourself. After all. they live here. The next time you see one of these guys al a party, at the fitness center or out on the golf course, we suggest that you ask him. Pointedly.

Bishop T.D. Jakes: Sweating for the Lord

IT IS A SHAME THE ROBERT TlLTONS AND Jim Bakkers of the world have turned us all into a nation suspicious of flamboyant preachers, because it may keep some jaded souls from hearing the Word according to Bishop T.D. Jakes, the mesmerizing West Virigina-born preacher who moved his ministry to Dallas last summer.

Whether on television (Trinity Broadcasting Network) or at his Oak Cliff Pentecostal ministry center. The Potters House, Jakes* charisma is overpowering, but not overwhelming. He works himself into a pitch quickly, diving into a sermon at full-tilt before he has even reached the pulpit (which is little-used since Jakes is constantly in motion.)

In some ways, Jakes is a direct offspring of old-time fire and brimstone preachers. He paces. He role-plays. He crawls on the floor-crying-to illustrate the plight of a morally weak biblical king. He bellows in a booming voice that could stir the hardest of hearts. He knows how to work a congregation, building in tone and pace, then pulling back to a whisper, then building again, then falling off. He will pause, and almost taunting, warn the congregation. “You aren’t ready for this,” before going on a five-minute tear that brings choruses of amens and hallelujahs ringing from wall to wall.

And he perspires. Prodigiously. If the Lord judges His servants by the number of gallons of sweat spilled while spreading the Word. Jakes will find a most-favored seat in heaven.

Yet at the same time Jakes distinguishes himself from run-of-the-mill television evangelists. He preaches a complex, orthodox and, according to one biblical scholar, “dead-on accurate” message, often favoring more obscure Old Testament passages over the typical fare of loaves and fishes. He brings even the most unfamiliar Scripture into a frame of reference that is immediately relevant and gripping, and fills his church with whites as well as blacks.

Jakes also reaches people that other preachers cannot or do not. His message focuses heavily on the role and needs of women, who have become a cornerstone of his ministry. He casts off the image of woman as subordinate and preaches a message of empowerment that garners him a national following.

And perhaps most important, he is believable. Even as he shakes, rattles and rolls around the pulpit, he exudes an air of sincerity, of belief, of passion that is rare, even among men of God.

WORST LOTTERY LUCK

Dallas pharmacist Johnny Ray Brewster won S12.8 million when he hit the Texas Lotto jackpot in May 1995. Only one of the annual installments of $463,320 had been paid when he dropped dead of a heart attack 10 months later at age 49. That’s when his tone beneficiary, sister Penny Griffin of Dallas, discovered that the estate she inherited owed S3.5 million in taxes- which had to be paid up even though she wouldn’t inherit the money all at once. The alternative: A ten-year payment plan with the 1RS, which would require the estate to pay at least $482,000 a year-or $18,680 more than the annual Lotto installment.

WORST HOME IMPROVEMENT

Only a few weeks before pipefitter Iving Thomas and his wife, Barbara, were scheduled to move into their $12,910 Oak Cliff home, the city of Dallas not only demolished the house, it sent the couple a bill for $1,379. “The city tore down their house without notice of a hearing, without a warrant and without a reason,” Federal Judge Jerry Buchmeyer ruled. “This is inexcusable and unacceptable,” said City Councilman Larry Duncan. “It is also terminally stupid.”

BEST NEW VOICE LeAnn Rimes: Hitting the Big Time

LEANN RIMES IS NO NEWS TO US IN Dallas and Fort Worth; she’s been singing the national anthem at sports events and performing at local Oprys and concerts for eight years or so, since her parents moved their 6-year-old singing prodigy here from Jackson, Miss. But 1996 was the year the rest of the country found out about the enchanting, unbelievable voice of this now-14-year-old. Her first nationally released CD, Blue, set sales records- 124,000 sold its first week of release- entered the country charts at No. I and at year-end was still in the Top 5. The fact that the CD’s title song, “Blue,” has not only a story but a legend attached to it hasn’t hurt sales any. Venerable WBAP-AM 820 disc jockey and songwriter Bill Mack first pitched the song to Patsy Cline in 1960, but she never recorded it before she died in a plane crash in 1963.

Blue’s, songs are an above-average mix of traditional and contemporary, and most impressive, these songs pull no punches. LeAnn’s voice gets a workout: no coasting here. It’s not unusual for a teenager to sing well in the growly sort of belting-it-out style that doesn’t necessarily require a good voice; think Tanya Tucker singing “Delta Dawn” when she was 13. But that’s more a knack than a true talent, and the same singer who can do that often can’t make her voice do anything else. But LeAnn can, and does-she belts ’em and she croons ’em; she sighs out perfectly rounded tones in the soprano range; and she can bend blue noies and wrestle a yodel to the ground without losing her pilch. At this point, it doesn’t seem a stretch to conclude that, if she put her mind to it and trained that marvelous voice, LeAnn Rimes could sing anything from bluegrass to opera.

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE

Twenty-five minutes into its flight from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport to Phoenix, an America West plane returned to Dallas. No, there wasn’t a medical emergency or a thunderstorm raging over West Texas. The airline called the plane back to pick up the California Angels baseball team, which had just finished a series with the Texas Rangers. To honor its contract with the Angels, America West

unceremoniously dumped 53 incredulous (not to mention outraged) passengers at the terminal to take a later flight.

WORST NAME CHANGE

A customer at the Western Union outlet in downtown Dallas presented a photo ID giving his name as “Roadway V. Express” and tried to cash a $715.47 check made out to Roadway Express. After the suspicious manager alerted police, Mr. Express was arrested and identified as 18-year-old Anthony T. Jackson of Cedar Hill, a dockworker at Roadway Express, a Dallas trucking company.

OPTIMA SIGNA TEMPORAE

Best Evidence that Western Civilization Is Not Entirely in Decline: Latin in Local Schools

OTEMPORA! O MORES! DICUNT LINguam latinam mortuam esse in mundo. Per contra. Ut humiliter opinamur, lingua latina vivit et ambulat bona fide in terra firma. Carpe diem. Lingua latina hodie est mater multarum lin-guarum. De facto, lingua latina semper vivet. Cui bono? Pro bono publico. Semper vivet in litteris verbatim: “Et tu. Brute?” Semper vivet in iure: Nolo contendere. Semper vivet in verbis Domini: “Pax vobiscum!” Semper vivet in congresso: quid pro quo, e pluribus unum. Et semper vivet in scholis: summa cum laude, et cetera, et alia…

Ecce scholae publicae ubi lingua latina instruetur in Anno Domini MCMXCVII. {Behold the public high schools where Latin is taught):

Dallas: Hillcrest, Skyline, Townview Center, W.T. White and Bryan Adams; Piano: Clark, Jasper, Shepton, Vines, Williams, Piano East and Piano; Irving: Irving, Nimitz and MacArthur; Fort Worth: Arlington Heights. Amon Carter Riverside, Paul Laurence Dunbar, North Side, R.L. Paschal, Southwest, Western Hills and O.D. Wyatt; Arlington: Martin, Bowie, Lamar and Sam Houston; Richardson: Richardson, Berkner, Lake Highlands and J.J. Pearce. And, mirabile dictu, also Highland Park.

BEST NEW MUSEUM

The Howard Rachofsky House: Modern Art Palace

BEST NEW MUSEUM

The Howard Rachofsky House: Modern Art Palace

BEFORE GROUND WAS BROKEN ON what’s become known as The House, few outside Dallas’ financial circles had even heard of Howard Rachofsky. With the completion of his Richard Meier-designed home on Preston Road (just north of Northwest Highway), the mega-wealthy investor; art collector at last has a place to exhibit his not inconsiderable collection of contemporary art-the Frank Stellas, the Donald Judds, the Mark Rothkos, the Julian Schnabels. Not surprisingly. The House has made Rachofsky the toast of Dallas Society. Here’s to Howard!

Like men of considerably lesser means, he began collecting art 15 years ago for reasons that had little to do with art appreciation: He wanted to get to know the owner of a Dallas gallery. Love waned, but his collection grew. By the mid ’80s, looking to build a house worthy of his collection, Rachofsky commissioned Meier after he visited the architect’s High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Rachofsky treats his private home almost as public space. Thirty fund-raisers for various good causes have already been scheduled for this year. And public activities seem to be what The House was designed for: The five-bath home only has one bedroom.

WORST DALLAS-AS-THE-THIRD-COAST STORY

Richard Scott Bloustine told Dallas acquaintances he was a film exec doing advance work for the movie “City Slickers 3.” In a week, the smooth-talking 30-year-old ran up huge bills leasing a chauffered Lincoln Town Car, eating at

expensive restaurants, leasing apartments and picking out $30,000 worth of men’s clothing at Stanley Korshak-all without providing an ID or credit card. But when Bloustine tried to lease furnishings for an apartment, someone called his bluff. He was arrested and charged with swindling. Police discovered he was a con man from Oklahoma who had skipped out on bills in Florida, California, Arizona and Jamaica.

BEST IMPRESARIO Bart Weiss: Video As Art

IN THE EARLY ’80s, BART WEISS WAS programming videos for nightclubs and scheming ways to get this infant art form before a wider audience.

Armed with a graduate degree in film direction from Columbia University, the native Philadelphian came to Dallas to teach at SMU, the beginning of a peripatetic academic journey that took him to teaching jobs across Texas.

Back in Dallas, Weiss started what became the Dallas Video Festival in 1986 as a one-room show in the Children’s Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art; now, on its 10th anniversary, the festival occupies its own wing of the museum for four days beginning Jan. 9th.

Both showcase and juried competition, the Dallas Video Festival brings audiences and auteurs from around the world to peek at and participate in this often overlooked and misunderstood medium. In just 10 years, Weiss’ passion for video and quest for perfection, compounded with his years of experience, have made Dallas the Cannes of the video world.

“What Bart has done is extraordinary, and I hope Dallas appreciates him,’” says Ruby Lerner, executive director of New York’s Association of Independent Video and Film Makers. “He’s put together the best work being made for television in the world.”

Not only does Weiss, 43, assemble the best of video filmmaking for his festival.

he’s had a hand in creating the best, too. A highlight of this year’s festival is a video for which Weiss served as an associate producer-“The Faithful Revolution; Vatican II, Part One-Genius of the Heart.” This PBS documentary evaluates the Second Vatican Council’s global significance, tracing the far-reaching effects of the Church’s attempt to be more open while maintaining doctrinal purity.

Weiss and his him crew traveled around the world and were granted unparalleled access to the higher reaches of the hierarchy. The final video production is the first full-length, on-camera examination of the effects of change on the world’s largest religion.

BEST ROUND-UP

After a three-tier cattle truck overturned on a freeway ramp, more than 100 cows charged through the streets of Mesquite with notice officers and members of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Posse and Mesquite Animal Control in hot pursuit One tragically misguided member of the herd was seen trotting through the parking lot at Colter’s Barbecue. Roberta Edwards, manager of the NationsBank, saw two dozen cows pass her drive-through window, followed by a furiously peddling police officer on a bike. “We didn’t cash their checks, but we took their deposits, if you know what I mean,” Edwards said.

Best New Golf Course:

Tor 18

Here’s an armchair golfer’s dream- this course’s design, inspired by the greatest holes in America, recreates highlights of the PGA tour. There’s the island green of the 17th at Sawgrass; there’s the background lighthouse of Harbour Town’s 18th; and, of course, there’s “Amen Corner,” Augusta’s storied trio. The course allows you to play the holes the pros play and be treated like one, too. Bag valets, complimentary range balls and numerous courteous marshals do their part to lionize even those who in Pro-Am lean far more to the “Am” than the “Pro.” Duffers beware; the course is punishingly difficult. It seems as though there’s always a bunker right where you’d like to hit. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear the commentators whispering your yardage and club selection. Tour IS is well-run, well-kept, well-marked and open year-round. Gallery following not included, 8718 Amen Corner, Flower Mound.

Best Dry Cleaners:

Bibbentuckers

Dry-cleaning dilemmas: You always forget to bring the clothes to drop off; you worry you won’t see your favorite black dress again or the stain on your new shirt will be missed.

Welcome, Bibbentuckers. This upscale upstart, run by President Bert Byerley (above), will pick up and deliver your clothes for free from anywhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area- It’s true; the Piano store sent someone to downtown Dallas for our laundry. When our clothes were returned, the sleeves of our suit were stuffed to prevent wrinkles and a missing button had been replaced. For future service, we received a personalized Bibbentuckers laundry bag as well as inventory sheets to track what we give them and bright orange stickers to bring attention to stains. Each garment label had a bar code Bibbentuckers uses for its electronic database. If you use the drive-through service, they’ll bring you tea or coffee and clean your windshield while you wait. Although the prices are slightly higher than many neighborhood dry cleaners (men’s shirts cost SI.40), the royal service makes it worth a few extra cents. 1913 Preston Rd., Piano; 972-7331919.

Worst Convenience Store: 7-Eleven

Zip in, zip out: Grabbing a loaf of bread or slaking our thirst with a Big Gulp at a 7-Eleven store used to take a matter of minutes. But standing at the counter behind people paying for gas, purchasing money orders, buying Lotto tickets or hot dogs, and discussing their gourmet food choices has taken the convenience out of our favorite quick-stop stores. Even with the walk from the parking lot, it’s faster to head to a grocery where 12 checkers on duty whisk us through the line. Yes, we love the multiplicity of coffee options and the Larry North entrées, but can’t they speed things up?

Best New Theater:

AMC Palace 9

Downtown fort Worth now has a total of 20 movie screens, split between two theaters. While it’s very cool to have the AMC Sundance there on Houston Street sandwiched between Caravan of Dreams and Uno’s Pizzeria, the new AMC Palace 9 Theater at 3rd and Calhoun streets is a moviegoer’s dream come true. It’s pretty, with a pink stucco facade and elegant lobby. Big auditoriums and comfortable chairs make you feel like you’re actually at an Event, not just watching a rented video on a screen a little larger than your home television. The concession stand has more than just popcorn, candy and soft drinks. And the AMC theaters’ “twilIte” deal-$3.25 for movies that start between 4 and 6 p.m.-is among the best movie deals around.

But the theater’s best attribute is its location, within easy walking distance of a dozen terrific restaurants, like 8.0 and Razzoo’s Cajun, and nightspots such as Caravan of Dreams and the Flying Saucer. At the end of November, a brand-new Barnes & Noble opened next door to the theater, making coffee/conversation/movie dates easy. Parking’s convenient-there’s a garage next door where you can park free at night (Get your parking ticket validated at the box office for daytime parking.)

Best Trip in Time:

Highland Park Pharmacy

I his authentic soda fountain has withstood time and technology for more than 80 years. You can’t get a double cafe latte decaf with a twist, or an everything bagel with jalapeno cream cheese here. This corner shop at Knox and Travis purveys anachronisms like limeades, phosphates and the best milkshakes, floats and sodas this side of the 1950s.

Pharmacist Thell Bowlin has owned the place for 23 years. For two decades, “Chef” Barbara Chudej (above, right) has grilled pimiento cheese sandwiches and homemade chicken, tuna and ham salads. For an amazing 37 years, soda jerk Sarah Rogers (above, left) has made cherry cokes behind the counter. Regulars like Cécile and Robert Drake, who have split a root beer soda each week for SO years (and who promise to bring their great-grandson as soon as his teeth are in), give the place a nostalgic spirit rarely found anywhere but in movies and memories. 3229 Knox St.

Best Indulgence:

Sheers, The Bodywear Bar

This tiny closet of a lingerie shop gives new meaning to the idea of women’s underwear. From the basic ($9 shoulder pads) to the sublime ($32 Susan Dunn spa slippers) to the ridiculous (a $200 push-up body suit) and beyond (Silhouettes’ $110 cleavage enhancers). Who knew this stuff existed? For free delivery in the immediate area: 214-528-7292; 4266 Oak Lawn Ave.

Worst Retail

Moment: Closing of The Gazebo

After 25 years of outfitting Dallas’ best-dressed women, The Gazebo closed its doors, citing a cash-flow crisis after several seasons of flat sales. A product of the ’70s when it opened on Cole Avenue (in the spot now occupied by Javier’s), The Gazebo originally specialized in Landlubber blue jeans and Nik Nik shirts. When Shelle Bagot bought the business in 1979, she set the store on a higher course, switching locations (first in Inwood Village, later on Preston Road) and ultimately the focus, from hippie chic to designer fare. North Dallas’ best-dressed are still suffering from withdrawal.

Best Place to Buy the Perfect White Shirt :

La Chemise Blanche

Here’s a store stocked with nothing but that staple of a classic wardrobe: white shirts designed by Parisian blouse maker Anne Fontaine. Shop owner Sheri Falk came up with the idea in 1994, the year she spent studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. On her way to class each day, she’d pass a store that carried nothing but white blouses. She returned to Dallas armed with a business plan to introduce the concept to an American audience. La Chemise Blanche (“the white shirt” in French) in Inwood Village is the first [and only) in the United States to carry the entire Anne Fontaine line, from the scoop-neck camisole ($58} to the windowpane-pattern silk blouse ($2821. 214-956-0800; S450 W. Lovers Ln., Ste. 131.

At the Home Depot Expo, decor shoppers can find everything from Pratesi sheets to European bidets. It is not surprising, then, that here the comely convene.

Which is not to say that these beautiful women are available. In fact, behind most of them trail handsome, handy husbands who nod at fabric selections, agree to “projects” and watch their watches, wondering if they’ll make it home for the kick-off. Indeed, idle conversation would most likely be met with disregard or potentially even scorn. Guys, they dont care to hear about your plumbing or your experience in laying tile. After all, if they were looking for a stud, a nail or a screw, they’d probably go to the regular Home Depot 13900 Dallas Pkwy.F 972-934-2900.

At the Home Depot Expo, decor shoppers can find everything from Pratesi sheets to European bidets. It is not surprising, then, that here the comely convene.

Which is not to say that these beautiful women are available. In fact, behind most of them trail handsome, handy husbands who nod at fabric selections, agree to “projects” and watch their watches, wondering if they’ll make it home for the kick-off. Indeed, idle conversation would most likely be met with disregard or potentially even scorn. Guys, they dont care to hear about your plumbing or your experience in laying tile. After all, if they were looking for a stud, a nail or a screw, they’d probably go to the regular Home Depot 13900 Dallas Pkwy.F 972-934-2900.

Best New Retail:

Fort Worth Outlet Square

Three words: Downtown outlet mall. Imagine-you dont have to pack up and drive to Hillsboro or Gainesville or San Marcos for outlet shopping. You can do it in downtown Fort Worth, at the Fort Worth Outlet Square, at Throckmorton and 3rd, across the street from the Worthington Hotel. Among the offerings are outlets for American Tourister, Dress Bam, Spiegel, Bugle Boy, Carter’s For Kids, Famous Brands Housewares, Computer City, L’Eggs/Hanes/Bali, Mikasa, Nine West and Record Town. And, in a nod to Fort Worth-based Tandy, there is indeed a Radio Shack Outlet. Sundance Square parking tickets are validated, and additional free parking is available at a lot at Forest Park and Taylor Street, from where a subway takes shoppers to the lower level of Outlet Square.

Best New Restaurant:

Toscana

It’s elegant but intimate, lively but a place to linger; Toscana brings a sophisticated edge to Mediterranean cuisine with meticulous service and warm surroundings. And the food,,.! Plump, fresh mussels steamed with chopped ripe tomatoes and a tinge of garlic. Fresh trout in a bed of citrus pasta. Creamy risotto with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes. The flavors of the Italian coast spring to life in this moderately priced new bistro, making a night out for fine food and conversation practical and pleasurable. 4900 McKinney, 214-521-2244.



Worst New Restaurant:

Trattoria P.J.

It opened. Thank you, it closed. From its thrift-shop decor to the wine list that featured some of the same screw-top wines that are served on planes to a singularly atrocious waiter (who liked to practice accents), Trattoria P.J. died an early, thoroughly welcomed death.

Best New Eating Concept: Eatzi’s

How do we love Eatzi’s? Let me count the ways. Custom-order a salad-to-go (extra arugula, raspberry vinaigrette on the side), choose your steak and have them cook it to order while you select a loaf of bread, bottle of wine and cluster of flowers. The only problem with Eatzi’s is fighting the crowds. But you won’t mind looking over the specialty beverages as you stand in the check-out line.

BEST ANNIVERSARY

20 Years of Best & Worst: Babes, barbs and bozos

BY TOM PEELER

In January 1977. D Magazine launched what is probably the most popular annual event in Dallas publishing history, so why won’t anyone admit to coming up with the idea? As a freelancer, I have been involved in Best & Worst off and on since the second collection in 1978. I always assumed it was Wick Allison’s brainchild; as publisher and editor-in-chief he has never been reticent, but on this he claims loss of memory.

Allison gave me a few leads to check; the most promising was David Bauer, now an editor at Sports Illustrated., who was involved in most of the strange and unusual happenings when he was with D. Bauer asked me to refresh his memory with a few of the ’77 entries, which 1 did, reminding him of the Best Girl-Watching Site (the escalator at Neiman Marcus NorthPark) and Best Local TV Show (“Bowling for Dollars”). “This is scary,” said Bauer, who excused himself to work on next summer’s swimsuit issue.

Based on what I was able to piece together, the idea was apparently borrowed from city magazines in Boston and Philadelphia. Texas Monthly had its Bum Steer awards, but this was something new for Dallas, and the D staff soon discovered that going out on the Best limb was every bit as risky as knocking Uncle Henry’s greaseburger. In a scathing letter, a pet lover lambasted D’s nod toward a local canine country club as Best Pet Resort, claiming that her dog came home from the establishment not only infested with fleas and ticks, but shaved to the skin.

For an encore, D staff and regular contributors gathered the following fall in the backyard of Cardinal Puff’s near SMU to brainstorm. I don’t know what strategy the Goafs for Dallas work group employed, but the cold pitchers of Coors seemed to stimulate our creative talents. The ’78 issue still reigns as one of the two best-selling of all Best & Worst publications, tripling the usual magazine newsstand performance, though we may have been a little carried away when we described the meatloaf at the Bronx restaurant as “exciting.” We were especially proud, however, of the all-time classic Worst Restaurant Name: Never Eat Anything Larger Than Your Head.

The most popular early entries went to the very essence of an enriched life: chicken-fried steak, ice cream sodas, haircuts, onion rings, shoeshines, discos, salad bars and hiccup cures.

Sheriff Carl Thomas was the first politician to make the list, a feat he managed to accomplish every year he was in office. The late Max Goldblatt, the irascible city councilman from the Pleasant Grove area, was also a B&W favorite. He argued that Dallas was foolish to think of itself as an international city since “we can barely speak one language good.” In 1988, City Council candidate Tom Williams was recognized for his campaign promise to liberate the animals from the zoo if elected, and a year later, the entire Dallas City Council won notoriety for its resolution condemning Mighty Mouse for inhaling a suspicious substance.

Congressman Jim Mattox’s press secretary was an obvious choice, first for calling opponent Tom Pauken a Nazi, then explaining that he didn’t mean Pauken personally, but rather that “all conservatives in the Fifth District are Nazis.”

The Republican National Convention in 1984 garnered an entire half-page the following January, highlighted by syndicated columnist Robert Novak’s remarks that Dallas was the perfect place for such a gathering since it had “lots of tax shelters” but “very few transvestites.” Ronald Reagan wasn’t the only one to go to bed early during the boring convention, which earned a B&W entry for a resolution passed by the Platform Committee late one evening commending “everyone who has not been commended.”

In 1988, Gov. Bill Clements captured a half-page all to himself. He rated particular mention for noting that the customary trial-and-error period with the Legislature was a waste of time. “It’s like two old dogs smelling each other,” Clements said. When he was caught fibbing to the NCAA about SMU’s athletic infractions, he explained that “we weren’t operating like Inaugural Day with the Bible.”

Then along came candidate Perot who smashed Clements’ record by locking up a full page following the ’92 presidential campaign. He gave a half-hour lecture enti -tied “Deep Voodoo, Chicken Feathers and the American Dream,” and during a key debate, he made the memorable remark that if anybody has any better ideas, “I’m all ears.”

Sporting entries have always been big winners, but they can become outdated in a hurry. This item, 1985’s Best Sports Management (Dallas Mavericks), could have been used again in the 1990s as a Worst entry with no rewrite: “Norm Sonju and Don Carter have a plan, they’ve stuck with it and we see the results.” We were pretty hard on Hollywood Henderson of the Cowboys, noting that “he continues to degrade what has always been a despicable reputation.” Today, Henderson would be just one of the guys, but Rangers pitcher Steve Howe’s accomplishments have withstood the test of time; he noted that in his wilder days he could “snort a watermelon through a garden hose.” The best sports fan would have to be the 78-year-old Lakewood woman who, when tied to a chair by robbers, asked to be placed in front of the TV set so she would not miss the Cowboys game.

Cops and robbers always make good B&Ws. On the side of the law, at least nominally, D featured a Duncanville police I lieutenant who explained that his falsified lab report on blood stains was an “interrogation device.” A Garland resident, after escaping a burning building he had entered to search for a neighbor’s child, was ticketed by the local police for backing over a fire hose. A bungling bank robber asked the officers to remove the keys from his getaway car because he had borrowed it from his wife and he was afraid someone might steal it. A blind burglar carrying a television set was apprehended when he aroused suspicion by bumping into a tree, and thieves hitched onto a truck trailer at a local drug warehouse, stealing $60,000 worth of Milk of Magnesia.

Even well-meaning, law-abiding citizens can wind up as Worsts. World War II veteran and chili impresario Frank X. Tolbert made the list when he told a visiting Japanese dignitary, “I once shot a little fellow who looked just like you.” Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, food critic for Parkway Magazine, was panned for no greater sin than reporting on a classic filet of red snapper that was “shaped like a fish.” A Carrollton assistant principal was more deserving of his Worst when, as a part of a study on kids’ reactions to bad news, he announced, while faking tears, that President Bush had been assassinated. Dallas native Claudia Rasmussen was tagged for Worst New Product, a game called “Pin the Hoot on the Neut,” featuring a poster of a sexless child and paper cutouts of male and female symbols, which was designed to “add fun and excitement to baby showers.”

More bizarre is the People Do the Strangest Things category. In 1983, a human fly known as Spider Dan scaled the 56-story First International Building. Four years later, hundreds watched breathlessly while Paul Tavilla attempted to set a world record by catching a grape in his mouth dropped from the top of the 72-story InterFirst Plaza. He missed. In 1985, a naked man strolled leisurely into the Anatole Hotel and insisted on registering for the night. The night clerk, new on the job and unsure of the rule on naked guests, took the safe way out and denied registration on the grounds that the man had “no baggage.”

Where does all this come from? A dedicated staff, driven by relentless editors, collects these items on computer disks the way we used to throw pennies in a fruit jar for a big celebration at the end of the year. The length to which the contributors are willing to go for a good B&W is incredible. In 1982 (which, by the way, was the top Best & Worst edition in terms of total magazines sold), one intrepid reporter warned the readers against the Worst Restroom Graffiti at Norma’s Topless Bar on Highway 377 in Tarrant County, which he called “witless redneck filth.” Whoelse would drive all that way just to ferret out witless redneck filth? WORST ANNIVERSARY

25 Years of “The Metroplex”-Enough, Already!

Win dinner for four at Nana Grill. Give our region a better name. Inspire millions. Spur economic growth. And become famousat the same time.

Last November, members of the North Texas Commission, a kind of regional chamber of commerce, gathered to celebrate its anniversary and the word coined for it in 1971 by Harvie Chapman of the Tracy-Locke ad agency: Metroplex.

We hated it 25 years ago. and we hate it now.

The birth of the word Metroplex was one of those well-meaning boosterisms that ends up a grating irritant.

The North Texas Commission needed a slogan, a name for the burgeoning North Texas region. The highly anticipated Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was becoming a reality. The U.S. Census Bureau was in the process of redefining the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas of Dallas and Fort Worth. Soon, the Dallas SMSA(ranked then at 16th) would merge with the Fort Worth SMS A (then 42nd) to form an 11 -county SMSA, which would then become the 10th largest population center in the country.

Chapman had the arduous task of coming up with a term to describe the newly formed SMSA, an appealing appellation that would lure business and industry (and their dollars) from the cold climes of the North to the warm buckle of the Sun Belt.

Tracy-Locke had already tried one phrase: “North Texas-The Good Life.” But researchers sent to test the slogan on corporate execs in Chicago and New York discovered that “North Texas” evoked the Panhandle. And nobody wanted to move to Lubbock.

Doodling one day. Chapman wrote down the words “Metropolitan Complex.” Eureka! He sliced through a few letters, squeezed the rest together, and the Metroplex was born. It went public in the February 1973 issue of Fortune magazine, when the Commission ran a two-page ad announcing “Dallas/Fort Worth: The Southwest Metroplex.?” Trademarked, no less.

Metroplex was enthusiastically embraced by some. Drive-time radio announcers and TV weather forecasters loved it. So did business owners. Metroplex Carpet. Metroplex Tires and Appliances. Metroplex Sanitation. Who wanted to confine their customers to the place they actually did business? Metroplex Equities. Metroplex Methodist. Metroplex Marketing. Today, the business pages of the Dallas phone book have more than 150 businesses named Metroplex-something. (Our favorite: Metroplex Graffiti.)

Though the unofficial policy on the copy desks of The Dallas Morning News is to discourage the use of Metroplex. a search of the newspaper’s database shows that use of the term is actually increasing. In 1986. Metroplex appeared in 276 articles: in 1996, that number was up to 396 mentions.

But after a quarter-century of propaganda, who among us thinks of themselves as “Metroplex! ans”?

When traveling around the world, do we say, “Oh, I”m from the Metroplex”? Those who do risk getting a blank stare. No one in New York. Hong Kong or Paris knows where the Metroplex is. But they know where Dallas is. It’s where J.R. Ewing lives.

For two decades, D Magazine has steadfastly refused to use the term Metroplex. But we can see that banning a word in our pages has the effect of forbidding slang in a houseful of teenagers.

Now, even the North Texas Commission wants to get rid of the name. So, in the interest of ridding Dallas and Fort Worth and All Its Neighbors from this hideous term, we’re announcing a contest for our readers: Come up with something better, something that says where we live and why. Coin a term that rolls off the tongue with style and flair and that could only mean right here. Noodle, doodle, contrive, conjoin. Deadline is Jan. 31. First prize: Dinner for four at Nana Grill at the Wyndham Anatole Hotel, overlooking Dallas-Fort Worth-or whatever our winner renames it.