Wade Smith played football in Lake Highlands before his days in the NFL, and now he’s returning to the Dallas area for a big fundraiser for youth programs. The Wade Smith Foundation will host its Inaugural Lake Highlands Legends Charity Weekend this Thursday, April 26 through Saturday, April 28.

Celebrity players will be participating, including LH legends Reggie Newhouse, Marcus Stiggers, Stephen Hodge, Frank Okam and Marshall Newhouse. The list of NFL All-Stars includes Antoine Caldwell, Herb Taylor, Torri Williams, Patrick Crayton, Nic Harris and Adrian Jones.

The event kicks off with a VIP reception at Winstons Supper Club in Dallas, with a celebrity bowling tournament in Addison Friday night. Night owls can preview Smith’s restaurant venture, Viva La Vida, til the wee hours after that.

On Saturday, the celebrity players will conduct a football clinic and flag football game at Eagle Stadium in DeSoto. The foundation will donate 20% of every LH ticket sold to the game back to the Wildcat Club for use by LH athletics. Tickets are $5 for regular admission or $25 for a VIP field pass.

There’s more info on the website here, including details about becoming a sponsor, volunteer opportunities, the exact times and locations of events, and so on.

Proceeds will be used by the Wade Smith Foundation to support youth programs promoting health, fitness, nutrition and education.

If you visited the Dallas Arboretum over the weekend, you may have noticed the beginnings of Chihuly sculpture installation in the gardens. White Rock area resident Lottie Minnick was among the volunteers helping with the set-up, and she sent us these photos. Pictured with her are Alex Scott and Raven Gerber, installing in the Women’s Garden.

“Getting to be part of the install is incredible,” Minnick says. “This is like being backstage with a favorite rock star for me.”

The arboretum’s staff and volunteers will be working overtime the next couple of weeks to prepare for the big opening on May 5, but they believe the end result will be well worth it. Here’s a glance at Chihuly, by the numbers:

23: Areas of the gardens that will house Dale Chihuly’s famed glass sculptures

4: People needed to assemble the largest of the sculptures

59: Evenings from May through October that the gardens will open after hours for Chihuly Nights

334: Light fixtures requested by Chihuly’s lighting specialist to illuminate pathways to the art pieces

300: Percent increase in attendance when the Chihuly exhibit visited Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory

40,000+: Volunteers needed over the course of the exhibit’s run in Dallas

The arboretum is still looking for volunteers to help with the exhibit. To become a Chihuly volunteer, contact Sue McCombs at 214.515.6561 or smccombs@dallasarboretum.org.

The Exchange Club of Lake Highlands has received the Spirit of RISD Award from the Richardson ISD Excellence in Education Foundation and the Board of Trustees. The Award was announced during the Foundation’s “Evening of Honors” event April 13th, and the club celebrated again at their meeting Friday when RISD Trustee Luke Davis presented a beautifully inscribed glass trophy to Exchange Club President Bryan McCrory.

Luke praised members as unsung heroes, “doing extraordinary things for RISD, serving our students and our staff with vivacity, vigor, enthusiasm and vision.”

“The Spirit shared by these servant leaders,” he added, “is fundamentally one of the reasons why RISD is such a special place, and the infusion of their effort contributes immeasurably to our success.”

The Exchange Club, Luke noted, awards $100,000 in scholarships to LHHS students annually, honors LHHS students with Youth of the Month and Character Counts Awards, presents Teacher of the Year Awards, hosts the annual Hot Dog Dinner at the Red White Football Game, hosts the Halloween Carnival for community kids, hosts an Evening of Jazz for LH jazz bands, installed a Freedom Shrine in each LH school, hosts the Fourth of July Parade, sponsors the Unsung Hero Award and sponsors the LHHS Bell Boys, among other projects.

Congratulations, Exchange Club of LH!

You may not know the name Dan Yaccarino, but, if you have young children, you’ve likely seen The Backyardigans on Nickelodeon or encountered their ubiquitous image on toys and bedding at stores. Yaccarino is the famous author, illustrator and TV producer who designed the characters for The Backyardigans, and he came all the way from his home in NYC to visit with Merriman Park students Friday, April 13th.

Yaccarino is an award-winning artist whose work has been featured in animation, advertising, magazines and books worldwide, and he’s written and illustrated more than 50 books of his own. His large-scale paintings and sculptures have been shown in galleries in Tokyo, New York and Rome. His popular show Willa’s Wild Life airs on NBC and Qubo, while his show Oswald is on Nick Jr.

Yaccarino was invited by MPE librarian Mindy Albert, who admits to being a big fan. She says he shared is love of drawing with the kids, and inspired them to see the power of their own creativity.

A photo on White-Rock-Lake.blogspot.com shows a man swimming in White Rock Lake.

Local blogger Bernard Brown of White Rock Lake, Dallas last Wednesday snapped photos of a man swimming in the lake near the old Dreyfus Club near Sunset Bay and posted them on his site.

It wasn’t until later that he heard the story about the drowning, which we reported last week; he deduced that the swimmer and the drowning victim might be one in the same. After all, we don’t get many swimmers in White Rock Lake, where swimming has long been illegal.

Sure enough, Brown says, the sister-in-law of the drowning victim contacted him through his blog and let him know that the man in the photos was indeed the man who drowned.

“In fact, they have asked me for all the pictures that I have since it was the last time he was seen alive,” Brown notes.

Since being contacted by the family, Brown has removed photos in which the man can be identified from his blog, leaving just one that shows a shadowy figure swimming. One of the now-deleted photos showed the man, who looks to be in his late 20s or early 30s, exiting the water safely.

Apparently it was after Brown left that the man went back in the water and lost his life.

Police located the body of a missing (and presumed dead) Lake Highlands boy while searching Ensign and Sandwich roads in Ennis.

Police Saturday located the body of young boy who’s father and stepmother confessed to starving and dumping in a rural area.

Police resumed the search in Ennis for 10-year-old Jonathan Ramsey after waters from recent storms dried up.

At about 1 p.m. Saturday, cadaver dogs lead searchers to Jonathan’s remains, according to a report on Fox 4.

The discovery could mean increased charges from ‘injury to a child’ to homicide, or something of that ilk.

Just because they haven’t yet entered Kindergarten doesn’t mean the 4-year-olds in Donna Williams’ class don’t have a firm grasp on the work of the Masters. Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh – all in a week’s work at CCDC, Christian Childhood Development Center at Lake Highlands United Methodist Church.

Ms. Williams and her co-teacher, Dawn Gray, invited me to yesterday’s PreK Art Show, hosted as professionally as any NYC gallery. Phoebe and Olivia (shown in the photo above) were my docents, though you can see all the talented cherubs with their proud parents in my photo slideshow here.

The study curriculum blossomed into a fundraiser for the Red Cross after tornados earlier this month left North Texans homeless and hurting. LH sirens sent the kids scrambling for cover inside the church building, then they sang songs and shared finger plays for the younger kids longer than an hour to keep the frightened children occupied.

“The kids decided to have an art show and invite guests,” Williams told me. “They wanted to do something to help.”

Phoebe and Olivia were natural tour guides (“I know everything,” Phoebe announced), and explained that Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night was based on a bible verse and featured a dark sky. (“That was my favorite,” chimed Tucker, “I got to use my fingers to paint it.”)

Next were paper collages, homages to Henri Matisse. Then a wall of watercolors painted while lying on their backs, ala Michelango. “He was also a sculptor,” added Olivia with pride. Then, remembering a statue of David, the two girls giggled. Colorful works with titles like “Laughing Cat”, “Dark Rainforest”, “Slimey Earthworm” and “Silly Green Moon” dotted the walls.

They were all quite enthusiastic to show me their Jackson Pollock studies, demonstrating his technique of “action painting” with gusto. When I asked if, perhaps, even the 3-year-olds could master such a thing, they were aghast.

“Oh, no,” said Lauren. “This is art.”

If you’d like to add to their Red Cross North Texas Tornado Relief Fund total, you can email Ms. Williams here. At last count, they’d raised almost $700.

By “we”,  I mean the team that represented our ‘hood at the National Senior League Wii Bowling Championships.

Remember the C.C. Young Wii bowling team the Young Strikers? We ran a story about them last year when the newly formed team, whose members range in age from 50-90-something, advanced to the Wii national bowling playoffs.

This year, they were crowned National Senior League Wii Bowling Champions. Coach Jerome Lewis, C.C. Young’s wellness director sent out the announcement today, noting, tongue in cheek, that there are talks of a parade (obviously the route wasn’t planned in advance).

Congrats, Young Strikers. Way to make Lake Highlands proud!

Both mirthful and melancholic, filmmaker Gianni Di Gregorio’s The Salt of Life takes a smart, moving look at that moment in a person’s life when they realize they’ve passed their expiration date. Di Gregorio maintains the low-key, slice-of-life style that characterized this movie’s predecessor, Mid-August Lunch (2008), and delivers a worthy follow-up.

The actor director reprises his role of hapless Gianni, retconned into living with his wife (Elisabetta Piccolomini) and college-age daughter (Teresa Di Gregorio, the director’s daughter), and caring for his elderly mother (Valeria De Franciscis Bendoni). Now entering his 60s, Gianni is staring to feel invisible to the world around him — especially to the women who no longer seem to notice. His possessive mother serves champagne to her friends while Gianni pays her rent from his meager pension, his wife is affectionate but distant, and his daughter is directionless and self-absorbed. Gianni’s only substantial interpersonal relationship is with his daughter’s boyfriend (Michelangelo Ciminale), who doesn’t know he’s on the verge of being dumped. (Perennial nice-guy Gianni doesn’t have the heart to tell him.)

Gianni follows the advice of his friend and attorney, Alfonso (Alfonso Santagata), and decides to have an affair (even though Alfonso is made miserable by his own extramarital pursuits of younger women). There are plenty of possibilities for Gianni, few of them truly viable: his mother’s attractive caregiver (Kristina Cepraga), whom he reminds of her grandfather; an ex-girlfriend (Valeria Cavalli), who falls asleep in his presence; the daughter of a friend uses him to make her vocal coach jealous; a downstairs neighbor (Aylin Prandi), who flirts with him whenever he comes by to walk her dog.

An established screenwriter who made his directing debut with Mid-August Lunch, Di Gregorio infused both movies with wit and charm, though this time he stumbles a bit with a borderline farcical climax involving Viagra and a fruitless search for a bordello, an unnecessarily breezy attempt to balance out Salt of Life‘s melancholic undertone. That’s a minor quibble, as Di Gregorio imbues a wry, gentle sense of humor as he spins his tale of male menopause that never demands that we feel sorry for Gianni — though it’s hard not to. He may be a desperate buffoon, but trying impotently to find romance in the heart of Italy is a fresh hell indeed.