Staff photo: Christina Barany

The winners of the State Fair’s Big Texas Choice Awards will be announced Monday, and one of the competitors lives in Preston Hollow. Christy Erpillo is the creator of Fernie’s Fried Club Salad. That’s a 12-inch spinach wrap — deep fried, of course — that’s top with deep-fried croutons and served on shredded lettuce. Find out more about Christy on Page 3A of today’s edition of Preston Hollow People.

Double-click for an enlarged photo of the expansion

Good news for Dallas cyclists: Plans to expand the Northaven Trail from Preston Road to Valley Dale are moving forward. La Terra Studio, the Dallas-based architectural firm that is designing the trail, said they hope to have all the construction documents finished by the end of the year. At a public meeting with the Parks & Rec Department and the City of Dallas on Tuesday evening, CEO Michael Black said that ideally, a year from now the 2.2 mile trail will be usable.

The main pending issue is how to signalize street crossings so that pedestrians and bikers will be safe but motor traffic will not be impeded. The two major crossings that will likely have “pedestrian activated signals” are at Hillcrest and Preston. The remaining six street crossings will probably be painted crosswalks. After some nudging from the crowd, Kris Brown, president of La Terra, said stop lights are not entirely off the table. The final decision will have to get approval from the Texas Department of Transportation.

Several area residents expressed concerns that the trail will increase access to their homes and backyards, opening them up for crime. Brown said the trail will leave a 20 foot buffer from the property line and will not be lit, as lighting tends to “bring out the riff raff.”

If you’d like to have input on the Northaven Trail expansion, complete this survey.

In  celebration of 10 years in  business, Kohl’s is donating $500,000 to the 20 schools with the highest votes on Facebook. The contest runs through Sept. 3. If you have a Facebook account, use this link to vote for HHS.

Once on the approved list of schools, the only remaining requirement is to have at least one idea posted on how the cash would be spent. The leading school, Silverstein Hebrew Academy in New York, has the ingenious idea to “help the children.” And they have 99,288 votes.

The leading candidates for project proposals at Hillcrest are:

1. Providing computer labs on wheels so students could check out the technology for projects and enrichment, submitted by Kathleen Weaver

2. Providing an E-reader to every student, eliminating the need for paper textbooks, submitted by Suzanne Nelson Montgomery. This proposal assumes that all required textbooks are currently available electronically, which would be pretty amazing.

Thus far, the voting performance has been lackluster, with only 105 votes. (The last five of which came from this reporter. I practice what I preach).

Come on parents, students, and staff. You each get five votes, so spread the word and the clicking power.

Legendary sports broadcaster and former NFL player Pat Summerall was on hand for Friday’s season opener between Parish Episcopal and Epsicopal School of Dallas at Parish.

Summerall was making a donation of peanut butter on behalf of the Slant 45 Program to Parish student Cate Love. Slant 45 is a youth education program being held in conjunction with Super Bowl XLV in Arlington in February.

Parish won the game, 49-0.

The deadline to reserve a seat at the catered meal is Sept. 1, and the cost is $10. Call 214-368-6348 ext.252 for more information or to sign up.

I normally wouldn’t find myself surrounded by bikers on the side of the highway. But after writing this post, I decided to delve a little deeper into the issue. I’d interviewed DPD, DPS, and affected residents, and it seemed the only thing left to do was get in the belly of the beast and attend the weekly “Bike Night” at High Five Cycles off 635. Let me just say for the record, on the whole the bikers were respectful and open to talking to me. I was accused of being a cop–more than once–but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m working on a longer form piece about the whole stunting culture and the community reaction to it, so I don’t want to scoop my own article, but here’s a sampling of what I’ve learned.

1. The “stunters,” as they are called, are a pretty elite group. The majority of riders are not doing stunts, even if they have sport bikes, a.k.a. crotch rockets, because it does take a good bit of skill to pop a wheelie.
2. There’s a lot of turnover (pun intended) in stunt riding. One of the founding members of Dallas Stunt Riders, a 29-year-old male who requested to remain nameless, said that virtually none of the people he started riding with in 2006 are still on the road. Some were injured, some were killed, and many more just decided it was too dangerous.
3. Bikers are a divided bunch. Many of the guys I spoke with had a few choice words for the “street stunters,” including a version of, “Get your arse of the highway.”
4. Although I’ve been told there’s a growing number of female riders, the only chic I saw was operating the bikini bike wash. It’s worth noting, however, that the owner of High Five Cycles, Leslie Porterfield, holds the record for fastest woman in the world.

It shouldn’t take a Jedi mind trick to get you to Barnes & Noble this evening at 7 p.m. The Lincoln Park store is hosting an “Intergalactic Party” with Darth Vader’s Star Garrison, actor Mike Edmonds “Logray the Ewok” from Return of the Jedi and Cindy Freeling “Princess Anne-Droid” from Hardware Wars.

A calendar listing in today’s edition of Preston Hollow People erroneously stated the event would kick off at 1 a.m. B&N employees assured me the action starts at 7 p.m. So dust off your storm trooper helmet, grab your light saber, and may the force not disrupt your bedtime.

Mr. and Mrs. James Smail of Ligonier, Pa., and Gail Csiszar of Greensburg, Pa., are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, Lindsey Smail, to Karl Schneider, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Schneider and Mr. and Mrs. David Feherty of Dallas.

Lindsey attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is employed as a social networking manager at Smail Auto Group.

Karl attended Oklahoma State University. He is employed at Smail Auto Group.

Lindsey and Karl met while attending Dealer Academy and both reside in Greensburg, Pa., where they are busy planning their upcoming wedding and looking forward to sharing the information with friends and family. Stay tuned!

Which brings me to some pretty exciting news: Today’s Groupon deal is for discounts at Wendy and Craig Moore’s Nothing Bundt Cakes, the specialty bakery at Preston Road and Royal Lane that serves — you got it — nothing but Bundt cakes.

Their cream cheese frosting is so ridiculously good! And the Bundtinis, which are cupcake-sized Bundts, are so cute and delicious. Sounds like a great surprise for teachers making it through their first week back at school!