DMN | Miscellaneous

OBITUARY: Diane Hamilton; Spirited secretary at The News

Posted on December 28, 2006 by jbenton

Diane Hamilton, a feisty and funny secretary in the newsroom of The Dallas Morning News, died Christmas morning at Baylor Medical Center at Waxahachie.

She was 52 and had faced a yearlong battle with cervical cancer.

“Diane was a bigger-than-life personality whose presence always filled a room,” said Bob Mong, editor of The News.

Ms. Hamilton was born in Lansing, Mich., and raised in the Detroit suburbs. She moved to Los Angeles after high school, working in the insurance industry before heading to Texas in 1998.

Her fiancé, Tim Whittemore, met her in Los Angeles and was immediately attracted to two things: “Her long dancer’s legs and her sense of humor. She knew how to laugh and how to make other people laugh.” A close third, he said, was her sharp mind.

In Dallas, she began work at The News as an executive secretary, working with many of the newspaper’s top editors. She supported their work and that of journalists around the newsroom. Among her responsibilities was the annual assembly of award entries for journalism competitions such as the Pulitzer Prize.

“I can’t tell you how many times she knew the answer to a question or knew how to get things done when no one else seemed to,” said Walt Stallings, the paper’s senior deputy managing editor. […]

Cotton Bowl ‘ratty,’ but fans want to stay; Fair atmosphere, accessibility, tradition make up for blemishes

Posted on October 8, 2006 by jbenton

Oklahoma fan Ed Marburger has been coming to Texas-OU games for 29 years. And the idea of doing it anywhere other than the Cotton Bowl seems as wrong to him as crimson and cream on Sixth Street.

“You’d lose all the festivities and the atmosphere,” the Oklahoma City resident said. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

The football rivals have played at Fair Park since 1929 and have agreed to stay there through 2010. But it’s unclear where the Red River Rivalry will call home after that.

Dallas? Arlington? Austin and Norman?

The new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington is set to open in three years and promises to be the modern, plush facility the city-owned Cotton Bowl decidedly is not. The older stadium’s other major tenant, the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year’s Day, is considering making the move.

And others have pushed for the 106-year-old rivalry to become a home-and-home series.

But for many fans Saturday, taking the game out of its unique environment amid the State Fair of Texas would make it seem like less of an event.

“I don’t think anything in Arlington could be as big a deal as this,” said Annie Schuler, who was finishing off a mustard-topped corny dog as she entered the stadium before kickoff. “I don’t want to go out to the suburbs.” […]

Lobbyists bring unwanted attention to law firm; Locke Liddell hire says focus on past ties is guilt by association

Posted on January 25, 2006 by jbenton

Lobbyists are hired for their connections. But as Washington sorts through a growing lobbying scandal, the past connections of two lobbyists hired last fall by Locke Liddell & Sapp are bringing unwanted attention to the powerful Dallas law firm.

The two men, Roy Coffee and David DiStefano, have been connected to a foreign company’s attempt to work around U.S. sanctions against Iran and sell airplane parts to that nation – an attempt that centered on U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican accused in lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s recent plea agreement of accepting bribes.

The two lobbyists were hired in 2003 by a pair of businessmen with résumés out of a James Bond movie. One, a Syrian gambler nicknamed “The Fat Man,” made his fortune in Middle East arms deals. The other, a felon, was banned from East Coast racetracks in the 1980s for his connections to organized crime and has a Tennessee rap sheet for trying to defraud Elvis Presley. […]

Hundreds mourn fallen FW officer; Kid who played cops and robbers became dedicated policeman

Posted on December 5, 2005 by jbenton

By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1B FORT WORTH – Hank Nava used to serve on the Fort Worth Police Department’s honor guard, the men and women who stand at perfect attention at the funerals of their fellow officers. “He always knew death was a possibility,” said his former partner on the force, Mike Montgomery. […]

Refusing to forget Vietnam; Local immigrants give thanks for lives here, feel for hardship there

Posted on May 1, 2005 by jbenton

By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1B Tom Ha left Vietnam 30 years ago today. He was a 24-year-old medical student on the island of Phu Quoc, tending to refugees who had fled the advancing North Vietnamese Army. It was on the radio that he first heard the news: Saigon had fallen. Having worked alongside […]

Fans ensure slain rocker will always be with them

Posted on December 12, 2004 by jbenton

By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 2B ARLINGTON – Jimmy Fisher was a 13-year-old kid when he heard Pantera’s buzz saw roar for the first time. “It was chaotic but soothing,” he said Saturday night, scanning the walls of an Arlington tattoo parlor for interesting designs. “I got hooked for life.” So when former Pantera […]

When the earth moves, UTD listens

Posted on January 16, 2004 by jbenton

Page 1B Did the earth move for you? Now you can get confirmation. Geoscientists at the University of Texas at Dallas have installed a seismograph that will measure the magnitude of any earthshaking events in the area. North Texas is pretty stable, so the device is more likely to pick up shimmies in hot spots […]

UNT, families grieve for 4 killed in crash

Posted on December 20, 2003 by jbenton

By Jason Trahan and Joshua Benton Staff Writers and Matthew Zabel Denton Record-Chronicle Page 1A They were the kind of kids who sang in the church choir. They flew to Central America to help children struggling with cerebral palsy. For fun, they went rock climbing and played computer games. They dreamed of being veterinarians and […]

Scene on the street: some panic and some pluck

Posted on August 15, 2003 by jbenton

From Staff and Wire Reports Page 1A NEW YORK – For the city’s residents, Thursday’s blackout brought back memories of an even darker day. “It feels like September 11 all over again,” said Staten Island’s Giovanna Leonardo, 26, who stood in an enormous line waiting for a bus Thursday afternoon. “It’s that ‘what’s going on?’ […]

Parker County escapees captured; Inmates found at house in Tarrant after daylong search

Posted on June 15, 2003 by jbenton

By Joshua Benton and Reese Dunklin Staff Writers Page 1B WEATHERFORD – In the end, freedom was fleeting. The three inmates who spent weeks planning their escape from the Parker County Jail – they crawled through an air duct in their cell out to the roof, where they jumped and ran away – were surrounded […]