Registration for the December MetroPCS White Rock Marathon opens June 1. The price is lower if you register early, before July 31, by the way. To celebrate the onset of marathon training season, the WRM folks will host a 6.4 kilometer race at the Bath House at White Rock Lake Thursday, May 31 at 7 p.m. Why 6.4 km. you may ask? It’s a beer-sponsor thing. The DWRM Kickoff 6.4 is presented by Miller 64.

The race is limited to 500 participants.

Runners and walkers will receive a technical training shirt and entrance into a post-race party, featuring Miller 64 aplenty, I assume. Wear your favorite Dallas White Rock Marathon race shirt to be entered in a drawing for a free 2012 full or half marathon entry.

You can register for $20 race day at 6 p.m. or online for $15 online.

The new White Rock Marathon course is set to be publicly viewable by June 1.

The 7th grade Destination Imagination team from Forest Meadow Junior High has advanced to the Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee after a successful state tournament in April. They’re long on creativity but short on funds for their trip, so they’re selling Kindle Fire raffle tickets to help offset the costs of attending the competition.

Dr. James Murray of Abrams Royal Animal Clinic got them started by donating the Kindle Fire, and tickets are $2 each or 3 for $5. The winner will be drawn June 2nd. You can email team mom Jodi Stewart at jodi_stewart@sbcglobal.net to make a purchase.

Ryan Brockette, Catherine Bryant, Evan Stewart and Stephanie Stolte comprise the award-winning crew, making their third trip to globals. While at the University of Tennessee over Memorial Day weekend, they’ll meet teams from all 50 states and 37 countries and compete in the structural and architectural design challenge. They have created an extremely light-weight structure of only wood and glue, and they will perform a skit in which they deliver golf balls and stack weights onto the structure. The goal is to maximize the ratio of weights plus golf balls before it crushes.

Destination Imagination is an after-school activity that encourages student creativity, teamwork and problem solving. Teams are tested to think on their feet to devise original solutions by working together. Another team from FMJH, Kate Brackenridge, Brooke Elkjer and Caroline Lewis, made it to state this year.

Congratulations guys, and good luck!

Dr. Kay Waggoner, Sarah Dossou, Pelumi Wemida, Truitt Matthews

Lake Highlands High School seniors Sarah Penny and Lee Leuder were named Youth of the Year by the Lake Highlands Exchange Club Friday at the annual awards breakfast. Sarah is Homecoming Queen and Wrangler captain will attend the University of Texas in the fall. Lee is VP of both the Senior Class and National Honor Society and will go to either UT or Harvard. Both received $1,000 scholarship awards.

Sarah Dossou and Pelumi Wemida earned the club’s ACE Awards – Accepting the Challenge of Excellence. You can read Sarah’s inspirational story in this month’s Advocate here, and Pelumi has excelled since arriving in LH from Nigeria. Sarah will attend TWU and Pelumi is headed to the University of Houston. The students were selected by LHHS counselors and received $1,000 scholarships.

Dr. Kay Waggoner, Rebecca Hall, Jeff Bradford, Luke Davis, Kay Winkler, Susan Mims, Sabrina Morse

RISD Superintendent Dr. Kay Waggoner presented Teacher of the Year Awards to Wallace Elementary’s Rebecca Hall, LHHS’ Jeff Bradford, Moss Haven’s Kay Winkler, White Rock’s Susan Mims, and Aikin’s Sabrina Morse. Each was given a plaque and a $500 cash award.

Congratulations, teachers and students!

Taste Addison, the three-day food festival, kicks off this Friday, from 6 p.m. to midnight. This year’s event will feature food from more than 60 Addison restaurants, live music, celebrity chef demonstrations and wine tasting seminars, carnival rides, midway games and more.

The 5th person and the 10th person to email “I Love the Advocate” to mriney@advocatemag.com get four passes to the festival and a gift card to either On the Border or Nate’s Seafood and Steak House.

On your mark, get set, GO! …

Ever wondered what high school baseball players do during a rain delay?

When the Wildcats traveled to Temple Friday for the second round of the playoffs, they had to remain on the bus due to dangerous lightning in the area. With all that energy confined in that small space, it wasn’t long before they cooked up a plan to film a music video. You can watch it here.

Amazingly, Hudson Taylor recorded the fun on Gregg Calvin’s 4G iPhone, not a legit video camera. That’s Brandon Cook lip-synching in the center aisle.

Temple knocked Lake Highlands out in two games, but I have a question: since the song “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” was recorded more than ten years before most of them were born, have any of these kids ever heard of the band, Wham!? Any chance they have a clue who George Michael means when he sings “you make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day”?

Oh well, doesn’t matter.

The Dallas Police Department today released new details about a string of violent assaults and/or robberies along the Katy Trail as well as other parts of the city. As many as 11 recent incidents — including the mugging of both a jogger and of a woman leaving the Katy Trail Ice House — might be related, according to a press release. The following is a description of the suspects:

First suspect is a black male, approximately 20 to 30 years old. He is 5’8 to 6’2 tall and weighs 150 to160 pounds. He has been armed with a blue steel semi-automatic handgun.

The second suspect is a black male, approximately 20 to 22 years old. He is 5’8 -5’10 tall and weighs approximately 160 pounds. He may have a gold tooth and moles near his eyes. He has been armed with a silver colored semi-automatic handgun.

The suspect vehicle is gray/silver 4-door sedan. The vehicle may be a Chrysler or Chevy Impala. (more…)

The Bicycle Cafe, which only opened a few months ago and which we just recently featured in the Advocate‘s dining section, is up for sale.

They served up good, healthy sandwiches, salads, breakfasts, juices, beers and so forth but now they are selling, based on the restaurant’s Facebook status:

“DALLAS BICYCLE CAFE for sale, if interested email to Armando@dallasbicyclecafe.com or aguer75@aol.com”

To a concerned commenter they responded that the cafe would remain open for now.

I have messaged the owner and will keep you posted.

Charity Wallace (center), Senior Advisor to Mrs. Laura Bush, with assistant Jenny Lynn Buntin (left) and LH's Paula Davis.

Charity Wallace has logged a million miles and traveled to 60 countries as part of George W. Bush’s presidential staff. She’s served as Deputy Chief of Protocol (Nancy Brinker was Chief) and Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush. She spent Friday heaping praise upon Healing Hands Ministries.

“What you do in this community is of great significance,” she told the sell-out crowd at the second annual Tablescapes Luncheon. “Each day you show God’s goodness and faithfulness.”

Wallace shared her inspirational story, “From Fear to Faith,” beginning with her days as a young graduate of Pepperdine University. After two years performing in musical theatre, she volunteered in Bush’s presidential campaign. She made herself useful to the candidate’s advance team, and was in the thick of the Florida recount intrigue in Palm Beach. She helped plan the inauguration, including the family prayer service, and landed a plum job in the White House with the 43rd president.

Wallace says her fascination with politics began even before she hit junior high. As president of her California elementary school, she wrote Ronald Reagan a letter in Washington. It began, “From one President to another…”

Wallace has now signed on to serve as Director for the Women’s Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute. This worldwide outreach to lift women up keeps her working closely with Laura Bush who, Wallace says, still maintains an incredible public events schedule.

“In 2004, her events schedule was unbelievable, but I just figured that was because it was a re-election year. Then, in 2005 she had 300 events, in 2006 she had 350 and in 2007 she had 400.”

The work of the Women’s Initiative is based on the precepts that when a woman is educated, her children are more likely to be educated, healthy and successful, and a woman’s network is the best indicator of her success. Women in developing countries are brought to the U.S., nurtured in groups, equipped with training and delivered home ready to bring long-term stability and prosperity to their families and communities.

Not bad for a First Lady who finally has her wish of living in Dallas, or – as she calls it – Afterlife in the Promised Land.

In addition to Wallace, attendees heard from LaSonya Zackery, whose family made one of the 10,000 patient visits to Healing Hands’ medical and dental clinics.

“Janna was convinced that I was meant to sit next to her at church,” Zackery said, explaining that Healing Hands Founder and Executive Director Janna Gardner met her and personally urged to visit the clinic and seek care. “I’m so thankful for Healing Hands. It’s truly a blessing for people who have low income, no insurance and no place to go.”

“We try to stay out of the way and prayed up,” said Janna Gardner, who shared that Healing Hands was founded after God whispered about the need in her ear.

“God wasn’t whispering in your ear, Janna,” quipped Paula Davis, a member of the Friends of Healing Hands Auxiliary. “He was yelling, and we’re so glad you were listening.”

You can see my photo slideshow here.

Here’s a question for Mayor Vision: How did he get to Fair Park for last week’s Texas-OU announcement? He didn’t need to take a signature bridge.

Nothing illustrates the short-sightedness that dominates the thinking of those who run the city better than Fair Park. They whine and bellyache about the need to build things — signature bridges, convention center hotels, toll roads in river levees. That we already have something that exists nowhere else in the world is something they seem to be happy to ignore.

Unless, of course, it’s budget cutting time, when they always notice Fair Park. It has lost 12 percent of its funding since the 2007-08 budget, though we’ve managed to build the bridge and the convention center hotel despite the budget crisis.

I’ve always wondered why the bosses downtown dislike Fair Park so much. Is it because it’s not in a “convenient” part of town? Is it because it’s not new, and the only way to have a world-class city is to have lots of new things? Call me a cynic, but I’ve always suspected that Fair Park gets short shrift because it doesn’t lend itself to the sort of real estate development that motivates the people who run the city. You can’t tear it down to build something new.