LETTERS

A BALANCED VIEW OF GAY POLITICS

D’S COVERAGE of the emerging gay presence in Dallas politics [“Out of the Closet and Into City Hall,” July] proved interesting reading. We feel that it is important to get the tone in such stories right, and we commend D and author Ruth M. Fitzgibbons on balanced, unhysterical reporting.

Stephen Greco,

Barry Laine

Brooklyn, New York



YOUR JULY ISSUE and its article “Out of the Closet and Into City Hall” was excellent. Your readers are getting better information from you than the readers of such magazines as Time and Psychology Today, which do not even pretend to be giving a balanced view of this subject.

William Edward Glover

Homosexual Information Center Inc.

Los Angeles



NEWCOMERS GUIDE: SCHOOLS AND SUBURBS



FIRST, WE WISH to commend you for your continuing concern for quality in education for the schoolchildren of Dallas and Texas. Then, we wish gently to correct an error that was probably a typo. The Ursuline Academy of Dallas was founded in 1874, not 1974, as printed in the July issue of D [“1983 Newcomers Guide ” ]. Our 109-year heritage makes us the oldest continuous private school in Dallas, a fact to which 3,500 alumnae (mostly Dallasites) can attest.

Sybil E. Tucker

The Ursuline Academy of Dallas



YOUR EXCELLENT section of the July issue entitled “1983 Newcomers Guide” has undoubtedly elicited much praise as well as some screams of anguish over the omission of something considered important to the writer. I am in both categories.

You can justifiably say that you couldn’t list every private school in the Dallas area, but I am curious about the omission of the Preston Hollow Presbyterian Day School. It has offered classes for children with specific learning disabilities since 1961. making it probably the oldest private school in Dallas for children with these particular types of problems.

True, the school was originally established in 1953 only for preschool and kindergarten children, and it still has 115 preschool children. However, approximately 75 of the older children (from ages 6 to 12) are enrolled in the special school, which has been accredited by the Texas Education Agency for several years and which enjoys the high regard of local educators, doctors, psychologists and parents.

Lillian Ruth Powell

Dallas



IN YOUR “Newcomers Guide,” you wisely started with the excellent schools in the Dallas Independent School District. I was disappointed, however, that your list omitted (probably by accident) the best of the Talented and Gifted academies for seventh- and eighth-graders: Alex W. Spence Academy.

As an eighth-grader there last year. I think its teachers and classes can compete well against the top private schools. Spence was the first middle-school academy established in the DISD, and almost all of its students go into honors classes in high school.

Frances De La Garza

Dallas



HAVING BEEN a charter subscriber to D Magazine, I want to take exception to the analysis of your newcomers guide’s “Dallas Community Profiles.” Nowhere in the article is there any mention of the fact that Grand Prairie is an integral part of this area. Certainly, Grand Prairie deserves to be profiled alongside the cities extending from Addison to Arlington. We expect no more and no less.

William L. Colip, M.D.

Grand Prairie



PLEASE TELL your next cartographer that there are 12-not 11-colleges in the the city of Dallas and that the light green bush just to the left of Mountain Creek Lake in Southwest Dallas should have been the 200-acre hilltop campus of Dallas Baptist College. So please remember us the next time you’re placing the city’s colleges on a map. And keep up the great work at D. Like DBC. you’re one of Dallas’ best assets.

Tommy Thomason

Director of Public Relations,

Dallas Baptist College



ON TEACHING TEACHERS



PLEASE, DR. CLODFELTER, don’t misunderstand [“Letters,” August]. Of course it matters as much how you teach as what you teach. That is why the University of Texas offers the PTC (Permanent Teaching Certification) English major. The 33 hours of English are complemented by 24 hours in a second teaching field and 18 hours of education. Such a balanced program should be required of all junior high and high school teachers.

Christy Garcia

Dallas



JOE BOB BRIGGS RIDES AGAIN



I’M SURE the last thing that you guys at Magazine need is another picky letter. Well, picky or not,here goes: Regarding the photograph of Joe BobBriggsunderneath the “Bronco Bowl” sign in the article “Big Breaks” [July]: Hey, guys-it’s a bowling alley! The article refers to the location as a drive-in. This was my high school hangout in the late Sixties (I was born in Oak Cliff), so I feel a great need to point this out. The camera angle and the blotting out of the lower half of the sign could almost pass the sign off as a drive-in. Almost.

Marc S. Robinson

Dallas



LAKES WE LACKED



YOUR GUIDE to area lakes in the July issue [“’Water. Water Everywhere”] was fine- except for the omission of Lake Tawakoni. It’s a lot closer than Possum Kingdom, and it’s larger than several you did include. How come?

Muriel Pinkus

Dallas



DOES D Magazine know something that Lake Lewisville should know? How could your editorial staff, Bradon Mayer, the free-lance writer who wrote the article, or David Wallin, the map illustrator, miss the largest lake in the metroplex?

Jeffrey D. Pielet

Eagle Point Marina

Lewisville



Editor’s note: We did mention Lake Lewisville under its fonner names of Lake Dallas and Garza Little Elm, and we ran a photograph with a caption calling it “the best place for catching catfish.” Next time, we plan to devote more editorial space to Lake Lewisville, one of the best lakes in the Dallas area for boating.



MORGAN’S COVER: THE FAIREST CHOICE?

I HAVE BEEN subscribing to D Magazine for seven years now, and you have to be congratulated. You people have now come up with the worst cover you have ever had [July]. Do you mean that out of all the prominent people coming from Dallas/Fort Worth, the best you can do is to put one of the worst actresses in the world on your cover? That is truly an insult to the people of Dallas/Fort Worth.

Dan Breaker

Dallas



DISD: GETTING BACK TO BASICS



I THOROUGHLY enjoyed your editorial “DISD is Dallas’ Number One Problem” [“Editor’s Page,” August]. This is a problem not only in Dallas but all over the country. Whenever we get back to some of the basics that many of us had to learn when we were in school, we can expect to turn out people who can really cope with life. As things are now, our schools are turning out many people who wonder why they can’t attain higher status in their employment. It is pitiful.

Russell H. Perry

Chairman of the Board and CEO,

Republic Financial Services Inc.

Dallas



AN OLD-TIMER’S UPS AND DOWNS



YOU WILL HAVE an avalanche of letters, I think, from Dallas old-timers regarding Dallas’ first escalator [“Dallas Firsts,” August]. It was not at Neiman-Marcus in 1949, but at Sanger Brothers 25 years or so earlier. There was no Six Flags, Sesame Place or Wet ’N’ Wild in those days. For me and hundreds of other youngsters, the big thrill in those days was to go to Sanger Brothers and ride up and down and up and down on the escalator!

Frank Harting

Dallas



INSIGHTFUL FEEDBACK



TO ADD another phrase to your wonderful essay on success [“Insights,” July]: “Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little”- Epicurus. As you touched on, there is too much to do and experience in one’s lifetime to place limits on the pursuit of success and pleasures of everyday Epicurean living.

Dori Igou

Orlando