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LAKE HIGHLANDS ADVOCATE VOL. 32 NO. 3
PROFILE
6 Meeting Simon Le Bon
DINING
10 Jeff Bekavac
FEATURES
16 St. Patrick revitalization
20 Maddie Muller
22 Moouis Vuitton
29 Hoops revival
Moodi is the Fendi sculpture made by Preston and Adrienne Pannek. Moodi is a play off of Moouis Vuitton. Read more on page 22. Photography by Yuvie Styles.
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A DURANIE IS BORN
How a White Rock Elementary teacher inspired one student to meet Simon Le Bon
Story by AUSTIN WOOD
Simon Le Bon and Ava Meyers on the doorstep of Le Bon’s home in England. Photo courtesy of Zahra Meyers.
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When Ava Meyers stepped out of fourth grade language arts teacher Miriam Osborne’s classroom for an early end to the semester, she was understandably sad that she wouldn’t get to see her friends at White Rock Elementary for a while.
She was leaving a few days and a few periods early to spend two weeks in London for a family wedding over the holidays. A classroom-wide sendoff was organized to soften the blow, and on Ava’s way out the door, she got one last assignment.
“The whole class filed into the hallway,” Osborne says. “She left early, and we were hugging her and telling her goodbye, and I said, ‘Find Duran Duran’ — jokingly.”
Osborne is a diehard fan of the new wave U.K. pop band. Her classroom is decorated with Pop! Dolls of each member arranged in a pyramid by personal preference — Andy Taylor, credited with breaking up the band, is at the bottom, hidden by a desk organizer — and their second studio album, Rio , features prominently in the class record collection. There’s even a disconnected landline specially designed to receive “calls” from Simon Le Bon, Osborne’s favorite.
For a stint during the Meyers’ stay in England, the family stayed in an Airbnb in the Putney neighborhood of Central London. After visits to amusement parks, Harry Potter World, Buckingham Palace and theatrical performances, Ava’s mom, Zahra, searched for new activities to fill the time.
“I would just research what’s around this neighborhood,” Zahra says. “So when we went to Putney, it was Christmas Eve. We went to (her Aunt’s) house, and I was just Googling things to do in Putney, and the first thing that popped up was Simon Le Bon lives in Putney from Duran Duran.”
Even then, the idea of meeting Le Bon was far-fetched. So Zahra’s aunt sent out a few texts and zeroed in on an address. The original plan was just to walk by his house for the sake of simply viewing it in person on Christmas Day. That probably would have been enough for her Duranie teacher, as super fans are called, but Ava had another idea.
She and an 83-year-old relative named Nick, who apparently has courage in droves, went to the door and tried a knock. Zahra was initially hesitant but assumed Le Bon would be away on vacation,
so she figured it was harmless. Le Bon’s son-in-law answered, his wife came to the door next and following a few moments getting pitched the idea by Nick, agreed to get her husband “because it was Christmas.”
Next thing they knew, he was standing in the doorway. Simon Le Bon. The tall, 66-year-old rock star was notedly kind and friendly, giving Ava a kiss on the cheek and a hug. The two took pictures, and the 10-year-old was left with a lifetime memory.
“It was super exciting,” Ava says. “I didn’t think I was actually gonna meet them. It was just like, crazy.”
The entire experience was sparked by Osborne’s love for the band. When the teacher got a text of a photo featuring her student with Le Bon, she “just couldn’t believe it” and sent the photo to all of her Duranie friends. Ava gave what she recalls as an “hour long” recounting of the story to her classmates when classes resumed in January. It was Mrs. Osborne’s idea, naturally.
Osborne’s connection to the band goes back to her childhood in El Paso in the ’80s. As the daughter of a Syrian immigrant, she says she had trouble fitting in and finding an identity. Some days, she and her brothers would travel across town to get records from a British record store.
“I tagged along and I bought my first Duran Duran record. I just used my little babysitting money, and that did it,” she says. “And so I had been a fan, literally, for 43 years, my entire lifetime. And I think part of it was because it gave me an identity for sure. Aside from just loving the music and all of that, I’m also hearing impaired, and it wasn’t caught when I was a child. And so what I’ve since learned in my lifetime is there is no better bass player than John Taylor, and Roger Taylor was incredible, and I could hear the percussion. Duran Duran is a really strong percussion band.”
Close to four decades later, Osborne has carried her passion for the band into her RISD classroom, where she’s taught for the last 15 years.
“It’s just been a fiber through my whole life story, and I think it’s a fiber that’s kind of woven into how I teach and why I teach,” she says. “And I just think we all have a connection. It’s just finding what it is.”
The first day of class is always accompanied by a lengthy, in-depth backstory on Osborne’s Duran Duran passion, which stems from a time when music streaming was unheard of and favorite bands were hobbies. She plays a different record each week for the class on her turntable. Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Andrea Bocelli, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and of course, Duran Duran have played as students work on journaling.
Osborne says that listening to albums helps her illustrate the world of storytelling to her ELA classes. Each side of an album is a chapter, every discography a novel.
Ava is now taking guitar lessons at Dallas Piano Academy, which are going “pretty well.” She and her mom give a good amount of the credit to Mrs. Osborne, who “wouldn’t take any credit for it, really.”
“Music is a connector, and it connected me to a world that I didn’t always fit in as a child,” Osborne says. “It helped me find people who I still love to this day, and it’s a big part of this classroom with me and the students I teach, because everybody has a story, and there’s something really incredible about hearing something and it taking you to a happy moment.”
“And that’s what I hope for Ava, out of all of this Duran Duran stuff, that she hears one of their songs one day and just smiles.”
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(Finally) on his
Goodwins’ menu reflets the straightforward, quaility-first approach Bekavac Avenue has been known for throughout his career.
his own
Neighbor Jeff Bekavac recently opened up his first solo concept, Goodwins, on Greenville to critical success
Story by AUSTIN WOOD
Photography by KATHY TRAN
Jeff Bekavac is a Lake Highlands neighbor with serious culinary chops.
He’s been at the forefront of some of Dallas’ most cutting-edge restaurants and hospitality concepts. Originally from Coppell, Bekavac studied marketing at Texas A&M University before heading to San Francisco for culinary school, where he staged at restaurants around town and tried to make ends meet as a young student. After leaving the Bay Area, he made stops in San Antonio and New Orleans before returning to his hometown.
Following a stint at Central Market as an executive chef, Bekavac landed a job with Nick Badovinus and helped open up Hibiscus on Henderson Avenue. When Badovinus struck out on his own to open Neighborhood Services, Bekavac followed, beginning a long-standing partnership that would eventually bring polished, technique-driven New American concepts like Town Hearth and Montlake Cut to the Dallas dining scene.
He’s also helped refine menus for PILF Restaurant Group (the company behind Cane Rosso) and opened Omni Hotels in Louisville, Kentucky and Frisco. Bekavac recently opened his own concept, Goodwins on Lower Greenville, with his longtime friend Austin Rogers, who also owns the Alamo Club. The restaurant has been met with widespread acclaim since opening in May and has been pegged as an “instant classic” by area publications.
Bekavac moved to Lake Highlands in 2010 with his wife, Jordan, who previously worked as an ER nurse at Parkland Hospital before transitioning to remote work a few years back. Well over a decade later, the couple still lives in Lake Highlands with their three children, who attend or will soon attend White Rock Elementary.
With all the recent buzz, we decided to catch up with Bekavac to talk about career beginnings, living in Lake Highlands, working with esteemed chefs and finally opening a place of his own.
AFTER CULINARY SCHOOL, WHERE DID YOU GO?
I moved to New Orleans for a while. I lived there, then moved to San Antonio, where I worked with Jason and Jake Dady. Jason’s just a huge mentor to me. He opened his first restaurant at 25, and we were kids in there working, just trying to figure it out day to day. We worked six days a week. We did everything, pushing ourselves and trying to get better. Then I moved back up to Dallas, met Nick and opened Hibiscus with him over there. We just immediately hit it off. Then went with him shortly after he opened the original Neighborhood Services. I got in there at Lovers Lane, and it kind of just took off from there.
WHAT WORKED WELL ABOUT THAT PARTNERSHIP?
We’re very similar. A lot of hard work and a lot of laughs, like, a lot, a lot of jokes. We still text each other just stupid little jokes all the time, and a couple one-liners and get back into it. Coming up with new ideas was fun. That was really, for me. Launching every new restaurant was such a big learning experience. Nick’s a guy that really just wanted to keep going, keep pushing,
and I just always said yes. I’ll be forever grateful for him, for everything that he showed me and all the stuff that I learned from him.
WHY
DID THAT CULINARY STYLE YOU GUYS SPEARHEADED AT FLAVORHOOK RESONATE WITH YOU SO MUCH?
A lot of the DNA for me and what I learned was being honest with the food and not trying to present something different than what it was. Listen, if the halibut is from Nova Scotia, here’s exactly where it’s from, it’s a great piece of fish, it’s expensive, we’re not going to mask it, we’re not going to touch it a whole bunch. We’re not going to do a whole lot of things with it, because the fish is kind of the star of the show, or the steak or the scallops, and I think people really appreciate that.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY SO MUCH ABOUT RESTAURANT WORK?
You get that immediate feedback. There’s not a lot of delayed reaction. You know exactly if somebody likes something or not. Even now, it’s fun to watch people bite into something and kind of get a big smile on their face. If they’re having a shitty day or just an OK day, and now they’re here, and they take a bite, it transforms them to a happy place. A lot of times, you can see people just like they’re a little bit tense, and then they get a drink, or they get a first bite of food, and then they just relax and have a new time. There’s no better feeling than that, no better feeling.
HOW HAVE THINGS BEEN SINCE OPENING GOODWINS? It’s been a fun journey, even since May,
seeing people kind of take this spot and what we wanted it to be. Sometimes when you open, it’s terrifying. You’re putting yourself out there, your ideas out there, and your idea of how you want people to use the business and how you want to kind of be perceived. It’s kind of gone above and beyond our expectations.We’re really proud of that.
WITH SPRING COMING UP, ARE THERE ANY INGREDIENTS YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO USING?
Tomatoes are always on the forefront, peppers and all that kind of stuff. When it starts to warm up, we’re not going to change the menu every week or every other week; we’re changing it seasonally. So we’re already kind of looking forward to when it starts to warm up, because as soon as that weather starts to get back in the 70s and 80s, people feel like it’s springtime. So we’ll change up some of the dishes to make it feel more spring, you know, take away some of the more braised stuff to make it lighter.
YOUR WIFE WAS AN ER NURSE AT PARKLAND FOR A LONG TIME. WHAT WAS COMPARING YOUR DAYS LIKE WHEN YOU GOT HOME?
She was really good at kind of turning it off when she left the hospital, because there’s so many intense situations and death. I’m a lot more extroverted than her. So for me, verbalizing what happened to me at work, somebody burned this or somebody didn’t show up for the reservation, or this guy was a jerk. In hindsight, when she’d tell me what happened in her day, it seemed small. Kind of like, ‘Oh, this guy got hit by a car and shattered every bone in his body.’ It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s intense.’
WHAT ORIGINALLY DREW YOU TWO TO LAKE HIGHLANDS?
We like the area. It was close to where we worked. And then once we started having our kids and stuff and just the friends that they’ve made, and meeting the parents. We just love the community. It’s just a great place close to Downtown, you’re close to all different kinds of food and activities. It’s just a lot of fun.
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ARE THERE ANY NEIGHBORHOOD SPOTS YOU’RE A BIG FAN OF RIGHT NOW?
Obviously, Resident Taqueria, Goldie’s. I like Goldie’s because Brittany worked with me for a long time, and Matt, the chef there, I’ve known them for a very long time. We go to Cane Rosso just to support. Mariano’s, my wife could eat Tex-Mex like every single day of the week. We go to Vector Brewing a lot. I live right there, so I kind of keep it all in that little area.
LOOKING BACK, HOW REWARDING HAS THE LAST YEAR OR SO BEEN?
It’s been really good, I’m happy with it. I probably don’t say that out loud enough, because I’m always so focused on the tasks at hand. I don’t really take the time to stop and again congratulate myself for everybody. We’re always very thankful for all the people that work for us and try to give them big props, because we couldn’t do it without them. We’ve told them it’s like building a team and making sure that thing is running like the Chicago Bulls with Jordan and Pippen, that’s what we want. But I’m very happy with it. I’m very proud. It feels a little bit like an out-of-body experience. A year ago this place didn’t have all the walls up, and it wasn’t painted, and now we’re sitting here talking about it. So it was a very, very slow process, and then it’s gone by very quickly since we’ve opened. So I’m very, very happy, and it’s a lot of fun. Maybe something in Lake Highlands next.
Goodwins, 2905 Greenville Ave., 214.272.9677, www.goodwinsdallas.com
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Bekavac has also become involved in the Alamo Club since going into business with Rodgers.
Rebuilding a culture
A new principal and The PATS Club are making a place where students feel they belong
Story by AUSTIN WOOD | Photography by AMANI SODIQ
When Rebecca Rosa stepped into her new role as principal at St. Patrick Catholic School in July of 2024, she met a community of parents and students clamoring for a deeper connection to their school.
Enrollment was on a steady decline, popular community events like the Harvest Festival and Shamrock Shootout had seemingly lost their significance or been discarded entirely and parents felt a lack of administrative transparency.
Rosa was selected in June after a lengthy search and recruitment process that began in February. She previously served as dean of students at Compass Community School in Memphis, a public charter school that had replaced Memphis Catholic Middle and High School, her alma mater. Before Compass and Memphis Catholic, she taught theology and social studies at Bishop Byrne High School, also in Memphis.
Rosa says she was impressed by the school’s academic tradition, service learning program and emphasis on restorative practices during the interview process. It was also made clear, in no uncertain terms, that Father Charles Githinji and the rest of the search committee were looking for someone to take a different approach.
“They were pretty clear about the different pieces that they felt were gaps that needed to be filled,” Rosa says. “I think that my background as somebody who does value culture work really lent itself to that, because I do think that when COVID hit, the school very much closed down, and it needed to close down for safety purposes. I think it had a problem opening back up. So I think that people felt that, and that was something that they were looking for. It is definitely the case that our families want to be involved.”
Since taking the reins, Rosa has brought in new ideas and events to hopefully change the atmosphere around the school. Music has greeted students as they are dropped off in the morning, fathers are invited to taco breakfasts with their children and events like the annual welcome party at the KC Pool have seen a boost in attendance.
One event, Grandparent’s Day, brought hundreds of not only grandparents but also parents, aunts and uncles to a standing room-only mass at St. Patrick’s.
“I think Mrs. Rosa has the same kind of experience where she had the church and
the school, and I think also from the Father Charles side, he’s definitely made an effort to kind of unify the community as one, versus having that separate,” PATS Club President Jason Sangworn says.
Her emphasis on culture building goes back to her days at Memphis Catholic, where in addition to her role overseeing discipline as dean of students, she also served as dean of culture. It’s the role she says she’s most comfortable in.
“when you’re talking about developing a school culture, it’s really important to look at it from a lens of ‘this is more than an academic building’ ...”
“I’m also a doctoral student … I’m studying the impact of school belonging,” she says. “When a student doesn’t feel like they belong, they are less likely to be academically successful, they’re more likely to have high absences, high tardies, things like that, and they’re more likely to make poor decisions. So when you’re talking about developing a school culture, it’s really important to look at it from a lens of ‘This is more than an academic building in which you come in, you do your schoolwork and you leave.’ It has to be more. If it’s not, then the kiddos are not going to give it everything they’ve got. It has to be a community.”
Academically, Rosa aims to raise math scores and find new programs to strengthen the school’s overall profile. To achieve this, she says she has sent teachers to study the operations of other schools like Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas, one of the top destinations for graduating St. Patrick’s students.
Existing academic programs at St. Patrick’s include the SmartLab, an integrated computer and technology learning space for STEM instruction, and the Take Flight Dyslexia Intervention Program, which provides specialized support for those with learning disabilities. Gifted pupils can participate in the Wonder Program.
“They get pulled out once a week for that area,” Rosa says. “We also support them by differentiating things like math problems. We utilize Excel, and it allows us to say, ‘OK, you’re a wiz at multiplication. So now we’re going to give you some more advanced concepts to work on.’”
Catholic Social Teaching through service learning is an important part of academics at St. Patrick’s. Grades learn about an assigned social issue in the context of CST. Students then support an organization tied to that grade’s assigned issue, such as St. Vincent De Paul.
The school maintains a strong Catholic identity in student life. Mass is held twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and any of the 392 students are able to request the sacrament of reconciliation as needed.
“I want our kids to know that the expression of our faith, in some context, is actually a privilege,” she says. “There are kiddos inside and outside of Dallas who don’t get to go to school and talk about God, who don’t get to go to school and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to go to Confession today.’ Like, if our kids want to go to confession, they go to confession. There are kids that don’t get to pray together, and our school is quite diverse, so not everybody in the school is Catholic. But even within that diversity, they share an understanding and a love for one God.”
The religious emphasis at St. Patrick’s extends to athletics, where students receive preseason blessings from Father Charles, pray before games and participate in Dallas Parochial League sports. Students can play for school teams from fifth through eighth grade, with sports offered including football,
basketball, baseball, track, cross-country and volleyball.
Athletics are a piece of the cultural puzzle Rosa is trying to put together. Luckily, she says the students tend to take the initiative in that arena.
“The girls went home one night. They made posters and cards, and when the boys came in the next morning, their lockers were decorated with posters and cards, and it blew the boys away,” she says. “And so what do our boys do in return? In return, our boys go and they attend the girls volleyball game, and they pump the girls up, you know? And so that’s just that. That’s what I want our culture to be and to continue to be.”
“kids are running up giving her a hug, and I’ve seen her office where they’ve made stuff for her.”
—-—Jason Sangworn, PATS Club President
Signs of change are physically visible at the school, which is in the midst of a capital fundraising campaign. Both the upper playground and gym are being renovated as part of one of the most substantial facelifts the school has seen in years.
The PATS Club, the school’s version of a PTA, has been given more opportunities to become involved recently, Sangworn says. Spirit gear is now available for students and families, communication is more frequent and reinvigorated PATS Club events like the Christmas Fest have been well-received by the community.
The change ushered in by Rosa isn’t just felt by the parents, he says.
“I think (it’s) the transparency piece, again, not only is she accessible to us, she’s accessible to the kids,” Sangworn says. “And the kids are running up giving her a hug, and I’ve seen her office where they’ve made stuff for her. I think it’s real admiration for what she’s doing.”
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STOP SPEEDING BEFORE IT STOPS YOU
Speeding is the main factor in 1 out of 4 fatal or serious injury crashes in North
Muller battled ovarian cancer at age 8 and is now using her journey to empower children with cancer through her nonprofit,
Maddie
Warriors Play Too.
no playbook
When an 8-year-old is battling ovarian cancer
Story by JILLIAN NACHTIGAL | Photography by AMANI SODIQ
MADDIE MULLER was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at just 8 years old.
Maddie, a seventh grader who lives in Lake Highlands, is an ovarian cancer survivor using her journey to raise awareness and bring hope to others facing the disease.
A routine wellness check was what led to her diagnosis several years ago, as she had absolutely no symptoms.
“I didn’t have cancer symptoms, but when I was 7, my doctor found out that I was under average height,” Maddie says. “We ran a lot of tests and stuff, and when I was 8 or so, we figured out I had cancer.”
Her short stature was related to being predisposed to ovarian cancer.
“Maddie fell off her own growth curve and stopped growing well,” says Maddie’s mother Jennifer. “Her regular pediatrician is amazing, and said, ‘You know, she’s thriving. She’s doing beautifully, but I’ve noticed her growth is not great. Do you want to work this up?’”
The surgery Maddie had was supposed to just be preventative, but during the surgery, they found out she had stage 2 ovarian cancer. Most of it was removed during the surgery, but she had to receive four rounds of chemotherapy afterward.
“Most treatments are significantly longer, but mine was more just to make sure nothing would come back or nothing was left,” Maddie says. “I was a completely healthy kid. In fact, both of my siblings had had minor birth problems and stuff, and I was born completely healthy. There was nothing.”
“It was just such a shock,” Jennifer says.
Going through this journey was difficult for Maddie and her parents. Jennifer says that although she works in the medical field as an OBGYN, there was plenty for her and her husband Brett to learn.
“There’s not a playbook,” Brett says. “Trying to get clarity on what could impact us in the future, and what things could, if anything, we do preventatively to prepare her for other challenges that are related to having ovaries removed at such a young age.”
Maddie fought through the typical chemotherapy challenges and side effects — nausea and thinning hair — which led to her shaving her head.
“Honestly, I am a much different person now
than I was then, because it showed me that bad things can happen,” Maddie says. “Before that, much of my life had been very easy. I did well in school, I had friends, I had siblings and parents. There was always food on the table. I always had new clothes and toys and stuff to do.”
After going through her journey, Maddie wants to help others. She is in the process of starting a nonprofit, Warriors Play Too.
“A thing for me that was really fun, I had this hoverboard go-kart thing, and it was just really fun to drive back and forth on the streets,” Maddie says. “And it was a great way to play with my friends, because it wasn’t like I would have been the best at riding a normal bike or a scooter or something like that, since I was nauseous and shaky.”
Maddie found herself being unable to participate in some of the activities her friends would do such as jumping on a trampoline, because she could not risk being injured.
“It was really fun to just go up and down the street with my friends. And I thought, what if I could do that same thing for other kids with childhood cancer?” Maddie says.
As part of the nonprofit, a kid could apply and then choose from a selection of toys.
“For little kids, we have the little kid bikes like the ones that you don’t have the pedal or anything, and then we have the nonelectric version of that, just to give them a fun way to be active and do stuff,” Maddie says.
“The thing is like, kids have skateboards, but you can’t do that,” Brett says. “Riding a bike is hard if you’re dizzy and you’re nauseous, right? And so really, the only way she could be out and enjoying time with her friends, really, was to be in that little sit-down electric go-kart.”
The Muller family is in the process of officially launching the nonprofit as they finalize the website and product list.
Maddie also participated in Runway for Hope, an annual fashion show benefiting ovarian cancer research.
“To see her go from being bald and so sick and so weak to now playing club soccer, thriving in school — it’s been amazing,” Jennifer says. “It was just an amazing turnaround.”
THE TAIL OF THE GREAT
M o o u i s V u i t t o n
The iconic East Dallas art piece has been on moove since its last appearance
Story by AYSIA LANE | Photography by YUVIE STYLES
LAKE HIGHLANDS NATIVE PRESTON PANNEK AND HIS WIFE ADRIENNE MAKE UP
THE HOUSE OF PANNEK. The artistic duo, also the masterminds behind Blowouts & Company and Lash Loft, is responsible for the neighborhood sensation Moouis Vuitton, who made his first appearance in 2022. Since the creation of the life-size cow art piece, Moouis has been on tour, replicated, and even started a family of his own. We sat down with Preston to get the scoop on the origin and future of the iconic cow.
HOW DID MOOUIS COME TO BE?
My wife and I are big art fans ourselves, and I kept seeing people doing sculptures over the last couple years and I was like, ‘Man, Dallas really needs a Dallas sculpture, something that represents what Dallas is.’ We were joking around, and I was like, ‘You know what would be funny? A Louis Vuitton cow, and make it into a purse, we could put handles.’ I was telling my wife the whole thing and she was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ I was like ‘It’s super Dallas, though.’ What’s more Dallas than a cow that looks like a Louis Vuitton? And so we started from that idea.
WHAT ARE THESE SCULPTURES MADE OF?
It’s made of fiberglass, then it’s made with Bondo on top of that. Just like you make a car pretty much. And then all the little
hairlines and stuff that are put on it, if you get up really close, those are actually made with a kitchen fork. And we painted it up and put it out.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO MAKE? HOW MANY OF THEM ARE THERE?
Weeks, weeks, weeks, weeks and weeks. The first one took forever because we didn’t know what we were doing. We had major structural problems with it, with the udders, with the legs. It took a lot of working with it to be able to get it right. The second one, however, came together much quicker, probably two weeks, because we already had the idea. We had a plan.
There’s quite a few Moouis Vuittons, I think five or six in total. But there’s other playoffs of it — two others, and that’s Moocci, which is the Gucci version, and then Moodi, which is the Fendi version.
HOW DO YOU THINK MOOUIS GOT POPULAR IN THE CITY?
The reason why it got so popular is (because) we took it on tour. It just shows up places. Most art pieces stay where they are, and Louis moves around.
You never know where he’s gonna pop up at. He was in front of our house for a while. You can see the other Louis twin at the (Blowouts & Company) salon and obviously the other family members of it. And then right now, I’m
actually driving Moouis around every single day, about five hours a day, all through Dallas. It’s in the back of my truck, and it’s all mounted in there on fake astro turf, so it looks like the cow is just hanging out, eating grass in the back of my truck. That has really kind of boosted its popularity lately.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER COWS IN YOUR FUTURE?
I am working on a Birkin bag version of it, the house Birkin bag, which is my favorite Birkin bag. We are also working on a teddy bear Gucci version, which will have backpack straps for the throwback of the Gucci teddy bear backpacks from the 2000s. It’s over eight feet, nine feet tall. It’s a big boy because you’re able to sit down in its lap.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE TO SEE MOOUIS AND THE OTHERS IN THE FUTURE?
I would love to see them in NorthPark. I would love that more than anything, to see these three cows in a little setting in the middle of NorthPark by the stores. I think it would be amazing there. I think all of Dallas would come out to see it, too.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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BACK TO HOOPING
After some uncertainty, Hoops in the Highlands is back to being an annual fixture
Story by AUSTIN WOOD
Much like the Fourth of July parade and Oktoberfest, Hoops in the Highlands has been a staple in our neighborhood for decades.
But the neighborhood’s tradition of hosting a K-8 street basketball tournament every spring hasn’t exactly been an annual fixture since 2018. Hoops was customarily held outdoors in a church parking lot.
In 2019, it was canceled due to rain. In 2020 and 2021, COVID-era restrictions forced organizers to scrap plans.
After three years of no Hoops, there were some doubts as to the tournament’s future, but Kris and Michelle Hill, who have run the event since 2020, decided that the annual tournament would stay just that.
Their first move to bring Hoops back in 2022?
Move the games indoors.
“I was like, ‘We can’t bring this thing back to life after four years of hibernation and having it canceled by rain’” Kris says.
The couple reached out to Lake Highlands High School Head Basketball Coach Joe Duffield. UIL basketball season ends before the weekend normally set aside for Hoops, so there wasn’t much of a scheduling conflict for the LHHS gym.
“We were worried, but the community showed up,” Michelle says. “Our sponsors were ready to jump back
in. We were able to do new sponsors because it was Kris and myself and our contacts. So we kind of had fresh ideas there, but once we put it out there on social media, it was a Kevin Costner Field of Dreams moment, like, ‘If you build it, they will come,’ and we had a full gym.”
Michelle says one of the first noticeable benefits — aside from taking weather out of the equation — was that asphalt burns were no longer a concern for an onsite nurse, who hasn’t been in demand as much since moving to the high school. Moving indoors also helped bring the high school crowd into the mix.
“This is a Lake Highlands event that has brought Joe Duffield into it. He’s there both days, all day, and he’s watching,” Michelle says. “And a couple years ago, we had some of the state championship basketball players kind of walk around, and kids took pictures. It kind of took it to the next level of bringing in the older community, and in my opinion, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how that bond has kind of come about.”
Hoops was started in the early 2000s as a fundraiser for Lake Highlands area schools. The tournament also raises money for the middle school, feeder elementaries, and since moving in at LHHS, the Wildcat Booster Club, which supports LHHS athletics.
The Hills estimate Hoops typically hosts around 300
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teams, with around 1,000 games played throughout Friday night and Saturday. Teams plan out names, rosters and whose parents are handling registration months beforehand. While things have changed a bit over the past few years, one thing remains constant: T-shirts are king.
“Elementary school kids, especially boys, will wear a Dri Fit T-shirt,” Kris says. “That’s all they want to wear, right? And so with Hoops, I guess we revamp the logo a little bit, but one cool thing about Hoops is every year there’s a new colorway for the shirts, and if you go to any elementary schools in Lake Highlands during the recess hour, you will see the rainbow of colors of year after year of Hoops shirts and it predominates. If somebody would chart that out to see, like the kids wearing Nike versus Hoop shirts or whatever, I think that Hoops would be right up there with everything, because kids love it, and they keep them.”
Now that the tournament takes place at the high school, area song and dance groups provide entertainment in the LHHS Hub, and neighborhood dads have taken to setting up impromptu food stands with breakfast tacos and burgers thrown on grills brought from home. It’s a far cry from 2020, when it seemed as if COVID would finally break the proverbial camel’s back and end a decades-long neighborhood tradition.
One of the more tangible changes since the Hills took over was registering Hoops as a nonprofit organization. They say the change sets up the tournament to better reflect the expanding scope of its undertaking and operate more as a business, while still staying true to its roots.
The running of the tournament normally passes from family to family like the Hills, who say their time as organizers is coming to an end. Hoops in the Highlands, however, doesn’t seem like it will be going anywhere anytime soon.
“We made a lot of changes and are getting it ready to hand off to another family. We need it to be in good shape before we do that.”
A Dallas Favorite since 1984
Photography by Carol Toler.
A Next-Level Real Estate Experience
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