HEARSAY

Strip-Mining the Store: The chic set had a blast rifling the Prestonwood Neiman-Marcus store at the Great Catalogue Caper benefit chaired by Joe Musolino for the American Diabetes Association. Nattily attired guests raced about like hyperactive penguins, searching furiously for clues that led to the 100 gift-wrapped treasures hidden throughout the store. (“The perfect Dallas party game: acquisition!” cackled one bejeweled, determined detective as she shoved her way onto the escalator.)



Bush League: Dallas congressman and ardent softball player Steve Bartlett is keeping his bases covered. For his first fundraiser in 1983, Bartlett signed up presidential hopeful Rep. Jack Kemp of New York. This November, he’s bringing in another ’88 heavy hitter: Vice President George Bush.. .We hear that Dallasite Jim Oberwetter, who helped coach the local Bush effort in 1980, will be high in the batting order for Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign team. Oberwetter just got back from South Texas, where Bush raised over $100,000 at a San Antonio dinner-and drew more than 3,000 enthusiastic Bush fans to a barbecue in Hebronville.. .The best Democratic event in town may be that primary contest for Oak Cliff’s state senate seat. State Rep. Steve Wolens could be the lone white runner in a race featuring Dallas’ best-known black leaders. Dr. Jesse Jones, State Reps. Paul Ragsdale and Jesse Oliver, County Commissioner John Wiley Price and former State Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson are all possibles. The GOP’s Great Black Hope is ex-Dallas Cowboy tight end Billy Joe DuPree, whose qualifications are a) he’s famous and b) he’s wealthy. One big problem: To catch this pass, Billy Joe will have to abandon his home in affluent North Dallas for a more suitable address south of the river-where black voters may penalize him 15 yards for unsportsmanlike carpetbagging.



Attention, K-Mart Shoppers: Then there’s the 1986 Ses-quicentennial Exposition at Fair Park, where officials are dying to have China set up a massive exhibit like the one the People’s Republic created for the Knoxville World’s Fair. Fair officials said China’s Knoxville exhibit “made the stuff at last year’s New Orleans fair look like a K-Mart,” and set about early this year to wheedle a world-class exhibit from Peking for Texas’ 150th birthday party. They got Southland Corp.’s John Thompson to call on famed California industrialist Armand Hammer, who’s in tight with the Mainland. Hammer set up a meeting in Peking between State Fair official Jeanne Baker and top officials of the People’s Republic. When Baker got to China, she found the world a little smaller than she’d thought. The way we heard it, when Jeanne was formally introduced to a key minister in the Communist government, his first words to her were, “So, you don’t want us to send you a K-Mart, eh?” Our sources say the Chinese have agreed to send a dazzling 10,000-square-foot pavilion to Fair Park next year.



Mid-Life Crises: Channel 33 News staffers are up in arms over the firing of news director Tony de Haro. One source claims Tony was the victim of “back-stabbing” by former Channel 5 Dallas bureau chief Ruth Allen, who was hired by De Haro as the station’s assistant news director. De Haro loyalists call Allen a “barracuda,” saying she “sweet-talked” Channel 33 general manager Ray Schonbak into sacking De Haro-so she could get Tony’s job. Others at Channel 33 doubt the story. “It’s not in her nature, “says a source close to Allen. Now the station’s interim news director, Allen refuses to say an ill word of De Haro. “I couldn’t stab somebody in the back,” Allen says. “It’s against every principle I have. My Christianity wouldn’t allow me.”