Community

Longtime neighborhood resident and activist Elizabeth Blessing, 93, died in June. Blessing was well known in the neighborhood as a Woodrow Wilson High School grad (1936) and Hall of Fame member (2009), as the first woman elected to the Dallas City Council (1961-1965), as a Realtor with Ebby Halliday (1966-1999), as administrator of the East Dallas Cooperative Parish at Munger Place United Methodist Church, and as a member of various neighborhood non-profit boards of directors. Her daughter, Gail, still lives in the neighborhood. The East Dallas Cooperative Parish helped found the Wilkinson Center, which is one of the neighborhood’s best resources for people looking to turn their lives around.

The city’s trail network was the headliner at a Dallas Parks Foundation event at the House of Blues in June. CONFAB: A Dallas Parks Foundation Conversation brought together city officials, nonprofit leaders and local residents to talk about the state of parks, recreation and public spaces. Transportation planning manager Jared White discussed the trail system. Here’s the update presented to the city’s Quality of Life Committee: Right now, 125.5 miles of trails are completed. Of those, 42.7 miles are funded, and 17.7 are under construction. There are 25 more miles of proposed routes. The next big milestone is the Mockingbird pedestrian bridge, which will finally break ground June 18 after much de- lay. When completed, it will link the Katy Trail to Mockingbird Station. Speaking of the Katy Trail, the extension, which is being called the Ridgewood Trail as it crosses Central Expressway, won’t be fully complete until 2015. It extends east of Mockingbird to the north side of White Rock Lake, ending at the White Rock DART station. White says there’s a lot of momentum on the so-called SoPac Trail, running along the old Southern Pacific railroad near White Rock Lake, with city, county and state funding being secured. Construction could start later this year; there’s already a Friends group. The city also is looking for $6 million in funding to reconstruct the White Rock Creek Trail from Royal to the lake through partnerships or a future bond program.

On June 8, Dr. Alan Miller, chief of Oncology and medical director of Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center at Dallas, and several other doctors dove into their jobs — literally — to support Swim Across America (SAA), an open-water swim that will benefit the Innovative Clinical Trials Center (ICTC) at Baylor Sammons Cancer Center at Dallas. This year, the team set a goal to raise $25,000, and at the time of publication, they had raised more than $21,000. Last year, the team raised more than $21,000 for SAA.

CORRECTIONS: On pg. 57 of the June issue, Jordan Carter is the father of a 5-year-old whose interest in food and nutrition was piqued because of the Promise of Peace Garden. On pg. 24, Grace Choi is going to the University of Michigan.

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