Lake Highlands Advocate

11/12/2025

Forest Lane Academy Assistant Principal Rebecca Herrera lives by the three Es: Equity, Empowerment and Excellence. Those three words exemplify the “world-class experience” Herrera says each Forest Lane student deserves. Herrera raised money for the school to have a six-foot-tall Jaguar mascot over the summer. The mascot was present for the first day of school, and Herrera says students received it warmly. A name is still under consideration, with “Jag” and “Jaggy” both in contention.⁠
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Herrera has been with Richardson ISD for 12 years and Forest Lane Academy for eight. “We have a high number of students who are either transient or without housing, and that’s something where a lot of times, we’re having to figure out, even though that is the situation that they’re in, how can they feel safe and comfortable and ready to learn when they’re entering our campus,” Herrera says. ⁠
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Fellow Assistant Principal Jennifer Kim says, “She doesn’t want our kiddos to not have an experience that other students may get at other schools. With big experiences like field trips, she is just going to do what she can to make sure that our students get the same experiences that you may get at other schools.”⁠
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https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2025/10/24/forest-lane-academy-mascot/
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📷️: Amani Sodiq⁠

What’s yellow, has golden eyes, sharp teeth and spotted fur? A Forest Lane Academy Jaguar, of course. Until this fall, nobody had ever seen the Forest Lane Academy Jaguar. That all changed when a six-foot-tall Jaguar arrived on campus for the first day of school

11/12/2025

Carol Toler: I was attending a town hall meeting this month, when, in a scene straight out of film noir, a man told me he believes a painting is missing from City Hall.

Victor Lallier painting. Courtesy of Dallas Historical Society. Like most good stories, this one began with a rip-roaring fight at City Hall. I was attending a town hall meeting in the basement of “the people’s house” to discuss the future of that building

11/12/2025

Holiday at the Arboretum returns today with added nightime flare.

The southeast shore of White Rock Lake gets a bit more festive this week as Holiday at the Arboretum returns. (Dallas Arboretum) After celebrating 10 years of the festival’s signature lineup of “12 Days of Christmas” gazebos in 2024, the Arboretum

11/11/2025

Lake Highlands will play South Grand Prairie in the first round for the sixth season in a row.

11/10/2025

The Dutch Art Gallery will celebrate 60 years in Lake Highlands this November with a special anniversary celebration on the 15th.
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Many of the artists represented in the gallery are found after submitting their work to the Massars for consideration in juried art shows, while others find their way to the floor through solo exhibitions. Most are commercially established artists. Some, however, sell their first paintings at Dutch Art Gallery shows.⁠
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“I just love representing our local artists. I really do, and especially in this area as well, our working relationship with our artists is very, I think, top notch,” says Pam Massar, who currently runs the gallery. Her mother-and father-in-law opened the gallery in 1965. ⁠
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Art may take center stage, but another area of focus for the business lies in custom framing for flat prints and paintings. Mementos are a specialty for staff, who have preserved Air Force caps, a Native American ceremonial pipe, football jerseys, service medals, Civil War-era C**t pistols and even some delicate glass Christmas ornaments from the 1930s inside shadowbox containers. Overseeing the framing operation is Pam and Han Massar's son Nick, the Dutch Art Gallery’s “Framing Guru.” ⁠
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https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2025/10/24/the-dutch-art-gallery-celebrates-60-years/⁠
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📷️: .the.photographer⁠

11/10/2025

White Rock Que kicks off Saturday at Oak Highlands Brewery's new location near Beltline and 75, with live music, craft beer and buckle-your-knees delicious brisket, pork and ribs.

White Rock Que. Photography by Rasy Ran. The founders of White Rock Que admit their idea was unusual from the start — create a spirited barbecue competition to support the Dallas Area R**e Crisis Center after a serial ra**st terrorized Lake

11/07/2025

Luis Arturo Tapia, a Lake Highlands neighbor and filmmaker, didn’t initially see himself in the director's chair.

Tapia's path has been winding. Born in Mexico, raised in Dallas. He earned a degree in East Asian Studies at Princeton University and interned in Shanghai, where he relocated after college. Teaching English in Shanghai led to consulting for industrial firms around China. Tapia wrote a script based on his experiences. He eventually used that script to launch a career in filmmaking in China that has seen him shoot corporate campaigns for Alibaba, the NBA, Disney, Toyota and Yves Saint Laurent.⁠
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Tapia first arrived on Hong Kong's Lantau Island in 2019, where he encountered water buffalo and Jean Leung. He says, "They’re treasured members of the community. They’re really unique, but there was this one lady who looked after them. She decided that she wanted to look after them and I kept seeing her. I would see her sometimes on the beach, sometimes on the side of a mountain or in the wetland, always surrounded by these buffalo." He approached her and said, "'I’ve seen you around. Would you mind if I follow you around with a camera for a day or two?' ... But then the more time I spent with her, and as I started to try to understand where the buffalo came from, and kind of what their situation is now, I really felt that it was a really deep story there.” ⁠
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The Austin Film Society recently awarded Tapia the North Texas Pioneer Award to finish shooting "Mother of Buffalo." ⁠
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https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2025/10/24/how-luis-arturo-tapia-met-the-mother-of-buffalo/
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📷️: ⁠

Cunning Boy. Jai Gou. Ngau Ngau. Big Head Boy. Young Joe. Amy. When Lake Highlands neighbor and filmmaker Luis Arturo Tapia first arrived on Lantau Island in 2020, these names didn’t mean much to him. Close to six years later, he knows their favorite

11/07/2025

Once the Wildcats (8-2, 6-1 District 7-6A) got the ball, the result was never in question.

Lake Highlands football got back in the winning column with a 49-0 victory over Irving at Wildcat-Ram Stadium on Thursday. Chuck Smith launches a throw at home against Forney. Photography by Mike Duhon. Once the Wildcats (8-2, 6-1

11/07/2025

ICYMI: Founded in 1866 on a hilltop of vast prairie, McCree Cemetery is the final resting place of members of many of our community’s founding families.

John and Eliza Jackson were patriarchs of the extended Jackson family. Hidden off Audelia Road behind the AT&T data center and the alley to Estate Lane sits a little-known neighborhood gem. Founded in 1866 on a hilltop of vast prairie, McCree Cemetery is the

11/06/2025

The Wildcats will look to finish the regular season on a high note against Irving tonight at the Boneyard.

Lake Highlands football will cap off its regular season at 7 p.m. Thursday against Irving at Wildcat-Ram Stadium. The Wildcats take the field. Photo by Mike Duhon. The Tigers (2-7, 1-5 District 7-6A) have struggled

11/06/2025

Flu shots, health screenings and more at Saturday's Health and Safety Fair for kids.

Dallas police at a community event in 2019. Photo by Carol Toler. The Dallas Police Department will team up with the Lake Highlands Public Improvement District, Council member Kathy Stewart, Dallas Children’s Charities and Pacific Plus International to host a Health and Safety

11/06/2025

The success of both Goldie’s and Cedar & Vine demonstrated a clear market for curated cocktail programs and elevated date night fare in Lake Highlands. Goodwins chef-owner Jeff Bekavac has lived in Lake Highlands since 2010. For him, while the neighborhood has shown an appetite for concepts like Goldie’s, Lake Highlands is still Lake Highlands.⁠
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The fundamental blueprint of Lake Highlands remains mostly unchanged. It’s still the same sprawling, suburban-esque area made up of a patchwork of subdivisions built around Richardson ISD schools. It’s not Lower Greenville, it’s not Deep Ellum, it’s not Uptown — and won’t be for the foreseeable future.⁠
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Resident Taqueria’s Andrew Savoie isn’t so sure further growth is or should be a continuing theme of the dining scene in Lake Highlands.“We’re super limited in space,” Savoie says. “So really, it’s about supporting the businesses that are here right now. I don’t know if it’s about more. I don’t think that we need more … We don’t want to oversaturate this market, because then it doesn’t make much sense.”
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Much like its past, the future of Lake Highlands’ dining scene is likely tied as much, if not more, to home values and inventive mixed-use development as it is to inspired chefs and gourmand neighbors. ⁠
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https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2025/10/24/what-the-last-15-years-say-about-lake-highlands-dining-future/

The renaissance of Lake Highlands’ dining scene in the 2010s and 2020s likely hasn’t come as a surprise to those paying attention to what is happening in the neighborhood. It’s easy to view the opening of restaurants like Resident Taqueria, Cedar & Vine and Goldie’s for what they were: major...