How Dallas Found Its Voice

Mark Lamster's very first assignment for The Dallas Morning News was a bombshell. His review of the George W. Bush Presidential Center appeared on the front page of the paper in April of last year, days before the library opened to the public. It didn't pull any punches. "Everywhere competent, it nowhere rises to a level of inspiration," Lamster wrote. The newspaper's newly minted architecture critic called out the project's host, Southern Methodist University President R. Gerald Turner, for a directive that "precluded a work of more adventurous design."

"It was very embarrassing to a lot of what I'd call boosters in town," says Bob Mong, the editor-in-chief of The Dallas Morning News, who brought Lamster down from New York. Mong nevertheless put it smack dab on A1. "It got everyone's attention, let me tell you. When you stand back from it and look at what he wrote, it holds up very well today."