On Thursday, the Communities Foundation of Texas announced a new slate of grants from its W.W. Caruth Jr. Fund. On that list: ScholarShot, a Dallas-based nonprofit whose model serves to turn a troubling truth about Texas education on its head. In the Lone Star State, nine out of 10 low-income, first generation kids who enroll in college drop out. But with support from ScholarShot, which has a team of full-time employed academic managers, nearly all of them end up graduating or earning associates or vocational degrees.

But now the organization wants to attack the problem from another angle. ScholarShot will spin the $187,500 grant on accountability research, examining how well the state’s public universities support these students who are at high-risk for dropping out. The research will be published as a report card, with schools rating A through F, and ScholarShot Executive Director Dan Hooper is hopeful that it could have an impact on high school advisers and policy makers alike. I got Hooper on the phone for a few minutes Thursday to talk about the new effort.

His campaign hit me up yesterday. I guess I had too much time on my hands. Here’s how it went down:

Kalita Is Still Crumbling. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Turtle Creek gem is stuck in something of a limbo, decaying in front of our eyes. The Dallas Theater Center wants to be granted a long-term lease, but the renovations needed would probably cost between $30 million and $40 million. And, as Robert Wilonsky writes, preservationists are none too thrilled about handing the theater over to the DTC because they blame the group for “letting the theater rot during its original decades-long tenancy.” What’s likely to happen is that the Office of Cultural Affairs will send the job of a master plan out for bids, which will delay updating it even further.

State Rep. Eric Johnson’s Housing Corruption Bill Progresses. Johnson is making good on his mailers. A bill to remove local elected officials from the process in which the state approves affordable housing credits made it to the floor of the House. The bill is a response to Carolyn Davis’ bribery plea, in which she says she accepted money from a housing developer to prioritize his project. Johnson says the bill is separate from his campaign, which, OK.

DFW Airport is Arresting People Caught with CBD. Customs officials are doing quick tests of the oil at the airport and, if it has even a trace of THC, it gets confiscated and the individual is often placed under arrest. Some of the people arrested: a 71-year-old woman who says she used the CBD as medicinal pain relief and a 22-year-old student from Collin County.

Don’t Go To Work. Go Outside Instead. Because it’s beautiful. This weekend, there’s only a slight chance of thunderstorms. I’ll take it.

Welcome to the weekend. I know you’ve been waiting for this moment for all your life. Or the last few days. It’s going to be worth it, though, because this weekend is a good one in Dallas. There’s EarthX, billed as the world’s largest environmental experience, in Fair Park. That includes some cool films, conferences, and educational events. There’s Art Ball, which is the Dallas Museum of Art’s main annual fundraiser and a swanky good time. Please don’t damage the concrete steps this year. It looks like we’ve avoided cranes falling into the building, at least. There’s Taco Libre, which will be less swanky but probably more delicious. Finally, there’s the third annual Fortress Festival. Rae Sremmurd, Tinashe, and Chvrches are coming to town for it, but Leon Bridges’ homecoming is the most exciting part. Another exciting act to watch for: Dallas’ own Cardiac the Ghost. I interviewed him ahead of his performance, and you can read that below. If you’re just trying to make weekend plans, see our Things To Do page here. Otherwise, let’s chat with Cardiac.

Never heard of ranked-choice voting? For a compelling introduction to the concept, listen to this Radiolab podcast. But here’s a TL;DL (too long, didn’t listen) version:

We’ve got nine candidates in the race for Dallas mayor. That means, with near certainty, no one will get more than 50 percent of the votes, and we’ll head to a runoff between two candidates in June. To make the runoff, then, a candidate might need only about 15 percent of the votes. For comparison, check out our 2007 mayoral race, when we had 10 candidates: Roger Herrera, Gary Griffith, Edward Okpa, Ed Oakley, Darrell Jordan, Jennifer Gale, Tom Leppert, Max Wells, Don Hill, and Sam Coats. Oakley (20 percent of the vote) and Leppert (27 percent) went to the runoff. Hill, a criminal, didn’t miss by much; he got 14 percent.

Is Dallas well served by this system? Not when the field is crowded with candidates like it is again this year. Basically, any of the candidates could make the runoff. They simply don’t need that many votes, and the votes will be spread fairly evenly (probably more evenly than in 2007). A few percentage points will likely separate the losers from the two runoff-ers.

Which brings us to rank-choice voting. Rather than cast a vote for one candidate, you’d rank all nine candidates. There would be no runoff. Perhaps the candidate with a whole bunch of third-place votes would win outright. The advantages to the system: an expected higher rate of participation (“I don’t know who I want for mayor, but I know who I don’t want, so I’m going out to vote against that person”) and a winner that is supported by more of the population (“She was my third choice, but I can live with that”).

Here are the places in the United States where rank-choice voting is used. Are you gonna tell me that Memphis, Tennessee, is more progressive than Dallas?

FrontBurnian philatelists, correct me if I’m wrong. But I believe that this week may mark the occasion of the first Dallasite to ever be commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.

Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly Brinker was known for firsts. A teenage tennis phenom, she was the first woman to win a calendar Grand Slam. Before a horseback riding accident ended her professional career at age 19, she had already won a total of nine Grand Slams. (That’s eight more than Sloane Stephens and seven more than Naomi Osaka, both of whom are in their 20s.)

The native Californian moved to Dallas after marrying Norman Brinker, a member of the 1952 Olympic equestrian team, president of Jack in the Box, and founder of Brinker International. She was honored with a dedication at SMU on Tuesday that featured her daughter, Cindy Brinker Simmons, and local pro John Isner. She’s only the third tennis player to be featured on a stamp. The other two are Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson.

Little Mo had a great low volley, and I’m jealous of that tennis outfit. But I mostly love her attitude. In her 1957 autobiography, Forehand Drive, she shared this: “I hated my opponents. This was no passing dislike, but a powerful and consuming hate. I believed I could not win without hatred.”

Inspiring words from the woman who helped inspire the Tennis Competitors of Dallas.