George Martin and Marty Harrell used to be friends. They live 800 miles apart but swim in the same professional circles, the former heading Corsicana-based Navarro Pecan Company, one of the world’s largest pecan-processing companies, and the latter in charge of the Harrell Nut Company, which shells and sells pecans…
Last week, Unfair Park got its hands on long-hidden proof of what a lot of people already suspected: that Mary Suhm had cut a secret deal to help Trinity East Energy drill on city parkland while telling the City Council the exact opposite. Suhm’s initial response was to downplay the…
Abe Spear came to Dallas on September 20 to back Nashville musician Josh Thompson at a gig at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill. The 30-year-old Spear is a veteran banjo player who’d tasted modest success as part of the bluegrass group King Wilkie before joining up with…
The way she tells it on her website, Delsa Thomas decided to launch her own investment firm after Citi Smith Barney, where she worked, merged with Morgan Stanley. She left in February 2011, taking a decade’s worth of experience as a stockbroker and financial advisor to her new outfit, The…
In October, Turkish developer Mike Sarimsakci unveiled his plan to transform the long-vacant Butler Brothers Building at 500 S. Ervay St., caddy-corner to the library and directly across the street from City Hall, into a large mixed-use development complete with 250 apartments, a 200-room Hilton hotel and 25,000 square feet…
At 8:15 last night, Uthit Worawut and a friend were walking toward DART’s Hatcher Station in South Dallas when police say Traymill Cherry walked up to them pointing a .40-caliber handgun. Worawut, whose is listed on police reports as a resident of The Bridge, was carrying $230 cash, but Cherry…
Melba Ketchum has by now established herself as a voice in the scientific wilderness, proclaiming, loudly and often, that Bigfoot is real. That role was cemented in November when Dr. Ketchum — she’s a Nacodoches veterinarian-turned DNA researcher — announced that her “Sasquatch genome study” had found conclusive evidence that…
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins was scheduled to testify this morning at a hearing on whether he abused his office to perform a favor for a political donor. As you know by now, he didn’t show up, explaining through a proxy that, though he was at work, he was…
Soon, travelers stranded at DFW Airport be forced to pretzel themselves on uncomfortable seats or sneak away to an isolated corner of carpet for a few minutes of shuteye. That’s because the airport is getting nap rooms. The rooms — more accurately, a nap hotel — are planned by Minute…
In the early hours of November 16, 2012, Leroy Dukes was making his nightly rounds as part of the nighttime custodial crew cleaning American First National Bank in Arlington when he glanced inside one of the trash cans behind the teller counter. There, according to a criminal complaint filed recently…
It was intended as a creative way of showing seventh grade history students at Schrade Middle School in Rowlett how cowboys would corral wayward steers during cattle drives. But somehow, astonishingly, the teacher’s decision to actually lasso his students ended badly. It went like this, according to a WFAA report…
Last month’s unveiling of American Airlines’ new logo and livery (er, paint job) was a prelude to this: the long-awaited, full-blown merger with US Airways. The airlines are making it official this morning after their respective boards approved the $11 billion deal yesterday. US Airways CEO Doug Parker will head…
It’s been a decade since the Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, struck down the state’s law banning sodomy and “homosexual conduct” as an unconstitutional violation of privacy. Texas has since stopped enforcing the law, but not everyone got the memo. In 2009, two men were kicked out of an…
Last October, in a particularly brutal and senseless act of violence, Derrick Birdow crashed a Mercury Grand Marquis through the side of Greater Sweethome Missionary Baptist Church and proceeded to fatally bludgeon its 53-year-old pastor, the Reverend Danny Kirk Sr., with an electric guitar. Police weren’t sure why Birdow murdered…
The current iteration of the debate began when Larry McMurtry, writing in Texas Monthly, ranked Dallas well below Fort Worth among Texas cities, dismissing it as “a second-rate city that wishes it were first-rate.” That sentiment wasn’t particularly surprising. Anyone who’s read his books knows that McMurtry’s sensibilities tend more…
Clint Bench was born with with a congenital deformity that prevented his arms from fully forming. That didn’t stop him from going to college, getting married, having children or from riding roller coasters at Six Flags Over Texas. He’s done pretty much all of them: Batman, the Texas Giant, the…
Police are on the lookout for a 6’2″, 300-pound Hispanic man who conducted a brief but successful raid on the Victoria’s Secret at Mockingbird Station. According to a police report, the man walked into the store through the front door, grabbed 20 sets of pajamas — a $700 value –…
In his State of the Union address yesterday, President Obama laid out a moderately progressive agenda, calling for a higher minimum wage, action to combat climate change, comprehensive immigration reform, and tougher gun control measures. The Nuge was not amused. The New York Times described a “stone-faced” Ted Nugent whose…
DART’s policy, or lack thereof, for offering health coverage for employees’ gay and lesbian partners was thrust into the spotlight last summer when former police officer Andrew Moss launched a petition calling for change after his husband (at least under California law) was denied benefits. The agency’s board of directors…
In 2007, Dallas County came to the realization that throwing hookers in jail, as was the standard practice, was an expensive and not-very-effective way of addressing prostitution. So police, courts, and health providers teamed up to develop the Prostitution Diversion Initiative, a program aimed at treating women rather than punishing…
It’s a painful year to be a Mavericks fan. Two years removed from winning the NBA championship, the team’s a disappointing 22-29, with its playoff chances dimming with each passing game. Some might blame Mark Cuban, who dragged the team from the NBA’ cellar to its apex before dismantling it…
In the days since he was murdered at a Glen Rose gun range, American Sniper Chris Kyle, who recorded more than 150 confirmed kills while serving overseas, has become a palimpsest on which both those who abhor American adventurism overseas and those who view military skill as the ultimate virtue…
