Park Cities People Blog » Reasons to Love the Park Cities

Fight for Your Right to Dance

Charles Geilich — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:44:35 +0000

Aren’t you glad we don’t live in Adams Township, PA? If we did, we’d have to get the ACLU to help us fight for our right to pole dancing instruction, according to this NY Times article. Instead, we’re lucky enough to live in the land of pole dancing for all.

Let There Be (Expensive) Light

Charles Geilich — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:27:58 +0000

I was asked by our webmaster, Josh Hixson, what I thought about UP charging more for cell phone violations than does HP (with HP only issuing warnings at the beginning of the school year while UP writes real tickets). I didn’t really have any thoughts on the subject until it hit me in a “Eureka” moment. UP must pay for its new chandelier somehow.

And, furthermore, here we go again. The old “light fixture” was insufficient; now we must graduate to an expensive “chandelier.” When “carpool lines” are replaced with “queue lines” and “light fixtures” with “chandeliers,” watch your wallet. Although I’m sure it’s quite stylish.

Frightfully Sorry, Old Chap, I Believe You Cut

Charles Geilich — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:11:20 +0000

By the way, when did we begin calling the “car pool line” the “queue line” and start saying “queue up” instead of “line up?” I don’t remember voting on that.

Are we supposed to “queue up” after a tasty breakfast of kippers and rashers?

It’s the First Day of School

Kersten Rettig — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:38:21 +0000

And we just found our Highland Park swimming pool tags yesterday! They’ve been missing all summer. Oh well, it was too hot to go to the pool anyway.

We missed all of you summering Overheardians who weren’t keeping up with the blog as much. Hope you all have a great back-to-school transition. We look forward to hearing about your first day of school stories.

Hyer Voices

Charles Geilich — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:31:41 +0000

Wow, it was a hectic scene tonight at Hyer for “Meet the Teacher Night.” So many cuties saying hello, comparing their new clothes, squealing at each other in delight and discussing their summer vacations. They were precious.

And that was just the moms. The kids seemed pretty excited, too.

Goodbye to Glenn

Jason Heid — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:47:22 +0000

In a little while the People Newspapers/D Magazine family will gather to say goodbye to senior editor Glenn Arbery, who has so ably handled our Weekend section since its inception five years ago. For those who haven’t heard, Glenn is returning to academia, taking a two-year appointment to a chair at a college up in Massachusetts.

All of us who have had the privilege of working with Glenn will miss him, and the Dallas arts scene will have one less champion for its cause. Everyone who has had dealings with Glenn comes away impressed by his intelligence, but also his kindness and humility. Here’s a little taste of what I’m talking about.

HPHS Kids ACT up Again

Jason Heid — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:17:48 +0000

Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday we were touting Highland Park ISD’s great ACT performance? Well, it wasn’t yesterday. It was last Aug. 21.

Well, today we learn that this year’s crop of kids put last year’s crop to shame:

Highland Park ISD students earned an average composite score of 26.1 on the 2007-08 ACT. Their score is nearly a full point higher than the 2007 composite of 25.2 and beats the previous record of 25.4 set in 2006. The average Texas state composite score rose to 20.7, also a new record, while the national average was 21.1.

1,421,941 graduating seniors across the nation took the ACT, while 351 HPISD students took the test, which is often used to gain admission to colleges and universities.

“Our students stellar performance on this important college entrance exam is powerful external validation of the depth of learning that happens every day in the classroom, said HPISD Superintendent Dr. Cathy Bryce. I congratulate our students, who never cease to amaze me, along with their parents and our teaching staff.

Blog Stats — July

Jason Heid — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:34:05 +0000

I thought maybe July vacations — including Merritt’s mostly breaking from writing columns for our print edition — would leave our blog stats behind in July, but I was wrong. Once again, we managed to raise our numbers. July qualifies as our second-biggest month every in two of the top three metrics. It trails only monster May in those.

71,006 pageviews, 25,902 visits, 8,042 unique visitors

Our biggest day of the month was July 1, with 4,131 pageviews. Apparently, people are dying to talk about wearing bikinis to lunch, because that was the biggest post of that day.

To see the top keyword searches and individual posts of the month.

Top keyword searches bringing people to the blog in July:

park cities people blog
park cities blog
park cities people
i heart gawker
barack blog park cities people charles
“chillout palladium”
kristiana heap
orangecup
merritt patterson
highland park high school, erin finegold

Seven of those keywords are making a repeat performance. Kristiana, did you pay some friends to search your name 116 times this month to get on out list? Do you miss us that much? Are you going to invite us to read your blog?

Now, the most viewed individual posts of the month. (Remember that generally only posts with jumps or comments, or posts that get linked to through other blogs will show up, the way this is tracked):

No surprises there, as gas stations, bikinis, and websites featuring a photo of a police officer wearing a bikini topped the month.

Guess What? HPISD Has Some Pretty Good Schools

Jason Heid — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:48:39 +0000

From the district today:

Highland Park ISD and all seven of its campuses received “Exemplary”
ratings from the Texas Education Agency today. Exemplary is the highest accountability rating awarded by the state. The rankings are based on students’ performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills
(TAKS) tests, special education testing data, completion rates and annual dropout rates.

This is the 11th time HPISD has received exemplary status since the rating system was created in 1995 (no new rankings were given in 2003).
Individual campuses receiving the exemplary designation are:

• Highland Park High School
• Highland Park Middle School
• McCulloch Intermediate School
• Armstrong Elementary
• Bradfield Elementary
• Hyer Elementary
• University Park Elementary

Re: Officer Elwonger Story Cuts Her Some Inaccurate Slack?

Josh Hixson — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:11:31 +0000

Merritt’s write right. Here’s our correction:

The July 25 article “Officer’s Website Violates UP Policy” on Page 1A misstated the content of www.cuff-em.com. Officer Suzette Elwonger and the University Park Police Department were named on the Website.

The sentence now reads:

Both Elwonger and the UP Police Department were named on the site, and photos of Elwonger in her uniform were prominently featured.