Lake Highlands resident Hollie Higgins can be found most Sundays inside Lake Highlands Presbyterian Church. Yesterday, she picked up trash on the eastern shoreline of White Rock Lake as part of the congregation’s Mission:Possible! project.

“It’s reactionary,” Hollie answered when I asked why she was spending the day in community service. “This is the neighborhood where we live, work, play and grow. We’re called not just to receive but to give.”

Parishioners divided up tasks at a variety of venues, including handing out free water to joggers and bikers at the lake, giving homemade cookies to on-duty firefighters and scrubbing clean the northeast substation of the Dallas Police Department.

“It’s a privilege to have them here,” Officer Reed Barry told me while church members mopped the floor and shined surfaces. “It feels good to be appreciated.”

“Some of our members thought it was a little radical,” admitted Peyton Strouth, Director of Worship and Music, “their reaction was all over the place. It is kind of odd to change up the Sunday schedule and not have normal worship, but it’s a growing age.”

Participants began with a prayer at the church, asking for the “ability to change our neighbors, our neighborhood and ourselves.”

Genevieve Kpelly and her team then fanned out to Laundromats, passing out free coins to surprised strangers. “Some screamed at us, but most were very happy,” she said. “One man had just moved to the area and was looking for a church. He says he plans to come join us.”

Chuck Ramsey took a group to visit the elderly. “Some of these people have families in other parts of the country and some have none at all,” he said as he guided me from one room in the Alzheimer’s unit of the Villages at Lake Highlands to the next, chatting with patients. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have no one to visit.”

Reverend Anne Cameron was one of several members writing letters of encouragement to prisoners in the Polunsky Unit, which houses Texas’ Death Row and Supermax prisons. “Jesus told us to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and visit the prisoners,” she said. “Anytime we do that, we encounter God.”

If it’s possible to be both exhausted and rejuvenated at the same time, members arrived back at the church at mid-day feeling good about their work. Waiting for them, hot off the grill, were chicken breasts and hamburgers courtesy of Dallas Police officers wanting to express their appreciation.

You can see my photo slideshow of the day here.

Some moms might be a little nervous having one quarterback son go head-to-head against the other in the annual spring football scrimmage, but Lake Highlands mom Lauren Jones was taking it all in stride at Saturday’s Red White Game.

Trent, a rising senior, played for the red team and Brock, a rising sophomore, played wearing white.

Like Peyton and Eli, the boys admit to being uber-competitive and say playing on opposing teams was fun.

“I think it made both of us play better,” said Trent, who’ll be the varsity starter next year. Surprisingly, Trent says he enjoys fall Thursday evenings almost as much as game nights. “Thursday is the night before the game and I can prepare myself mentally,” he told me. “Friday night is the big event and I love showing the fans what our team has been practicing for all week.”

Pushed to the hottest part of the day to accommodate the kids taking the SAT test Saturday morning, the game – as much as any graduation ceremony – marked the end of the year for senior athletes, cheerleaders, Dettes, Bell Boys and marching band members, and celebrated the start of senior year for a whole new class.

You can see my photo slideshow here.

My favorite thing about attending the annual Lake Highlands Exchange Club scholarship awards breakfast is hearing about the diversity of the student recipients. Not just the racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity, though there is that, but some students are chosen because of grades and leadership, some for service and volunteer work, some for maintaining decent GPAs while supporting their families with afterschool jobs, and some for overcoming overwhelming obstacles. By awarding $118,500 to 49 kids, the Exchange Club is helping a wide variety of kids fulfill the American dream, even if several of them were brought here by parents or grandparents who struggled to get here from countries far from American shores.

You can see my photo slideshow here.

“One of the funnest things to do is interview these students,” said David Brown of the scholarship committee. “They’re our future teachers, firefighters, bankers and leaders. Parents, I’d like to congratulate you on a job well done. Teachers, we heard how you motivated and inspired them. Students, we hope you’ll return to Lake Highlands to make it your home.”

“We take our investment in these students very seriously,” added Cheri Luck. “These kids have committed to abstain from drugs and alcohol,” referring to the pledge that some of the scholarships require, “and they’ve earned our admiration for it. Each of them is very deserving of the praise and honor we have for them today.”

The recipients and their colleges are listed below. Congratulations all!

The Luck Family Foundation and David Tice Scholarships

Rodrigo Blas, Stephen F. Austin

Yordi Calix, UT-Arlington or SFA

Marilyn Domingues, University of North Texas

Stephanie Eyocko, Oklahoma University

James Iheke, Texas A&M University

Jordan Inman, TAMU

Asher Odom, University of Arkansas

Sarah Penny, University of Texas

Anna Sorensen, Texas Tech

Brianna Sutton, SFA

Exchange Club Academic Scholarships

Sarah Blettner, Southern Methodist University

Ashley Brandish, UT

Brinkley Field, UT
Jake Gaba, Dartmouth

Megan Garcia, Notre Dame

Megan Jodie, UT

Erin Larson, UT

Will Moomaw, TAMU

Abigail Nagle, University of California at Berkley

Sarah Norris, TAMU

Herb and Frances Walne Memorial Scholarship

Mesha Muse, UTA

Exchange Club Special Endowment Scholarships

Katherine Dodgen, Oklahoma Baptist University

Yonas Michael, TAMU

Hannah Pittman, Baylor University

Exchange Club Board of Directors’ Scholarships

Sarah Casburn, Texas Tech

Julia Dankberg, New York University

Sarah Dossou, Texas Women’s University

Lee Lueder, UT

Paige Moudy, UT

Sarah Penny, UT

Collin Plotts, Baylor

Nathan Schulman, Texas State

Peyton Slater, UT-Permian Basin

Bubba Smitham, UT

Jason Oglesby Memorial Scholarships

Luis DeLeon, TAMU-Commerce

Niani McDaniels, TAMU-Commerce

Carla Saucedo, Texas Tech

Data Jo Potts Memorial Scholarships

Brooke Morgan, University of Arkansas

Juan Sanchez, UNT

Janie Tekell, TAMU

Pelumi Wemida, University of Houston

Mitch Winkler, OU

Yoel Zehaie, UTA

The Melinda Ann Lee Memorial Scholarships

Kathryn Spurgin, Texas Tech

The Bob Potts Family Working Student Awards

Jamie Carson, Oklahoma State University

Isabel Dominguez, TWU

London Dority, TAMU

Ke’Shareon Ford, UNT

Jonathan Iheke, Texas State

Jeff Kane Memorial Scholarship

Max Aman, Texas State

The surprise is not that the bosses downtown thought it would be a good idea to to turn a pristine vacant lot into parking for an event celebrating nature. The irony is usually so thick around here that it can be suffocating. And City Hall has long been a proponent of similar sorts of silliness — remember the plan to make Greenville Avenue four lanes (and, when that failed, three lanes)?

No, the surprise was that everyone downtown was so surprised that people thought that their plan was a crummy idea. Poor Sheffie Kadane, whose city council district includes Winfrey Point. He looked, when interviewed on TV, as if Martians had come to earth and he was the only who could negotiate the peace treaty. And he didn’t want to do it.

Still, after all these years and after all the protests, the elite at City Hall refuse to acknowledge that they don’t always know best. Or that they should even be questioned about their decisions. This episode was chorus and refrain — the semi-secret plan to do something, the City Hall shrugs when the first objections are made, the City Hall arrogance when the objections didn’t go away, the City Hall insistence that the world will end unless its plan is OK’d, and the City Hall acquiescence to the objections without actually acquiescing.

The more things change, right?

In case you need a quick recap of last week’s episodes, the Dallas Arboretum in preparation for the Dale Chihuly exhibit, which they expect and hope will open to much fanfare, received the city’s permission to use the grass at Winfrey Point as a temporary overflow parking lot, to be used when and if the first many-hundred spaces over two separate lots fill up.

Neighbors Ted and Hal Barker — who have been complaining for years about people, cars and city staffers disrespecting the prairie surrounding Winfrey Point to very limited avail — were incensed.

Ted Barker has long fought for the protection of grass at the lake. Despite that smile, he really is incensed. He's probably just glad for the newfound support.

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Advocate photographer Jeanine Michna-Bales got a behind-the-scene glimpse at the Dale Chihuly glass-art exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum just before the show opened this past weekend. A few weeks ago we let you know about the vast amount of manpower it takes to put on a show like this.

It runs through Nov. 5.

Lake Highlands’ favorite redhead, Brinkley Field, is in a contest this weekend to be named Most Valuable Player in Greater Dallas for women’s soccer. She’s competing against 17 other outstanding athletes, including three from Highland Park’s newly crowned state champion 4-A squad.

The winner will be chosen by computer voting and will appear on the inside cover of VYPE High School Sports Magazine.

Brinkley, shown here with her family at today’s Exchange Club Scholarship Breakfast, is headed to the University of Texas to play soccer for the Longhorns. She captained the Lady Wildcats and played for Adrian Solca’s National Champion Solar Soccer Club. She was also a NASA intern, Hugh O’Brien Award winner for leadership and a Wildcat Wrangler.

Click on this link to vote for Brinks, as the kids call her, and we’ll hope there’s a magazine cover photo shoot in her future. Multiple voting is permitted, and voting ends at 5pm Monday, May 7.

Hal Barker has been protesting parking on the grasslands at Winfrey Point for years. Now people care.

UPDATE: “Officially, today, the 192nd Civil District Court of Dallas County dissolved a Temporary Restraining Order and Temporary Injunction that was brought against the Dallas Arboretum earlier this week. The injunction was an attempt to halt parking at Winfrey Point, an area of White Rock Lake Park,” from a press statement by Dallas Arboretum. We will post the video of the press conference later this evening. 

UPDATE: The Arboretum has called a press conference for 2:30 this afternoon. We will be there. I will tweet twitter.com/chughesbabb

At 9:45 a.m. today (Friday) about 50 people are gathered at Winfrey Point awaiting word from a court hearing.

“We just received a call from the courthouse. They are coming to mow the grass,” a woman, phone in hand, shouts.  The people — all donning savewinfreypoint.com T-shirts — begin mobilizing a protest.

“Do not park your cars on the grass,” longtime White Rock activist Ted Barker says. “They will ticket you.”

The Save Winfrey Pointers are fighting, immediately, the Dallas Arboretum’s plan to build a temporary parking lot for overflow Chihuly-exhibit parking.

But there’s more, says Hal Barker, Ted’s brother and, according to the brothers, the “document expert”.

Hal acquired documents through an open records act that show a study and a proposition for a large parking structure at this part of the lake.

“All the grassland you see from the old folks home at Emerald Isle to the lake north and west will be paved,” he says.

In the open records filing, he received about 25 engineering maps. The one he describes is the “worst-case scenario”, but he fully expects it to come to fruition if we the community doesn’t do something about it.

“I think it’s very possible that in 20 years the Arboretum, at the rate it is growing, will need this.” It is entirely possible, too, he says, that public outcry will make a difference.  “The public response is key,” he says.

I am following this and will report soon with more photos and video. Meanwhile, here’s a quick, raw interview with Hal Barker.

The Lady Wildcats will face Bryan High School again tonight in the second round of softball playoffs. The Vikings, who haven’t given up a run in three playoff games, defeated the Cats 9-0 last night in Lorena.

The game tonight begins at 6:30 pm at Anderson Fieldhouse on the campus of Mary Hardin Baylor in Belton. Coach Kelly Baker is keeping her girls pumped up, and the tight-knit group is rallying around the team’s pitcher Erin Brennan, who’ll take the mound again tonight. Go Cats!