Did anyone really think a decade ago that K104 would survive when "flyjock" Tom Joyner left? The station has not only survived but thrived, and the Morning Team, led by Skip Murphy, is the reason. He is the perfect complement to his team--Sam Putney, Chris Arnold, the Wig and the wonderful Nannette Lee. Each morning is at once an intimate hour before work and a freewheeling jazz-comedy session on the day's news and events. And the music is, ah, off the hizzle, fo' shizzle. Or something. But you already know this: The station is consistently No. 1 or 2 in the Arbitron ratings. Wow. We do something right, after all.

In some ways, this is the easiest pick. So many of the gallery shows we've reviewed were so weak that the images left our memory banks before the next week's paper hit the streets. Indeed, looking back on the last year, there's only one show from which we remember every single work: Modern Appalachia, Photographs Do Not Bend's show of the photographs of Shelby Lee Adams. There are plenty of photography buffs who believe Adams' work, which focuses on the mountain folk of Appalachia, is too predictable, even clichéd. And his lens does catch its share of 15-year-old mothers and dirty urchins. But Adams' real fascination lies with the old folk, fossilized remnants of a centuries-old way of life. The results are spellbinding little pockets of 19th- and even 18th-century Americana that have survived to this day. The subjects themselves, though simple folk, display a startling range of awareness, appearing at once romantic and emotionally naked, playful and utterly serious, vulnerable and shrewd. Despite being taken in difficult circumstances--on tiny farms or shotgun houses or plots of land that ascend straight up the mountainside--the majority of photographs were beautifully composed and lit. This is explosive subject matter, potentially lurid, ethically loaded. Yet Adams didn't go for the cheap or sensational, didn't aim to shock. There were no Goldin-style portraits in the outhouse, no Sturges-style naked backwoods Lolitas, no Mapplethorpesque exploration of the more exotic customs of the "confirmed bachelors" who populate his photos, no suggestion the sheep are scared. But Adams didn't exactly sanitize, either. There was poverty, buffoonery and ignorance aplenty in the resulting silver gelatin prints, along with dignity and tenderness. Adams' photos are affectionate glimpses of human folly.

Skip Cheatham is one of those guys women want to be around and men want to be, a smooth-talking, slang-dropping fella with his finger on the pulse and his foot on the beat. While it's a 24/7 party at K104, it only hits its peak when Skip's behind the mike, whether he's spinning records or spinning yarns, which is one of the main reasons K104 absolutely destroys all comers in the ratings. Here's two more: He's also the station's program and music director, a true radio triple-threat. K104 has a deep bench, but Cheatham is undoubtedly the team's all-star.

Besides being geographically miles away from the Dallas Art Dealers Association galleries along Cedar Springs, Fairmount and Routh, Forbidden Gallery and Emporium is miles away from them in its choice of art. Group and solo exhibits highlight artwork shown and collected on both coasts, but rarely seen anywhere else, including Tiki-themed art, Shag's space-age and retro-stylin' illustrations and works by avant-garde and young-buck artists Mark Ryden, Steven Cerio and Frank Kozik. Owner Jason Cohen, who once owned the gallery's Expo Park neighbor Forbidden Books, has established connections in the two and a half years the gallery's been in business and continues to bring in artists pop-culture fans have heard of, but few curators will take a chance on. At Forbidden Gallery and Emporium, "blue hairs" doesn't mean the old lady art collectors seen uptown; there it means punks taking in art you won't find anywhere else in Big D.

We had no idea how much difference a name makes until Check changed its moniker to Union Camp. To be honest, we probably wouldn't have given Check another chance, after 1998's All Time Low proved to be a tease, featuring guest appearances by Slobberbone's Brent Best, Legendary Crystal Chandelier's Peter Schmidt, and Centro-matic's Will Johnson, and, well, that's about it. But as Union Camp, the band got another shot to win us over, and this year's Fever and Pain (as well as its contribution to the Band-kits compilation) did just that, sounding like Brian Wilson sitting in with Creedence Clearwater Revival, or something like that. Southern rock that's not embarrassing or offensive? That's gotta be worth something.

This spot on the radio dial is beginning to look like that stretch of real estate where nothing ever catches on, that place in Deep Ellum where one bar after another comes and goes, rarely sticking around for more than a few months. The Zone didn't work. Neither did The Merge. The Bone looked like it might, darting up the Arbitron ratings for a few books running. And then the bottom fell out. Turn off the lights on your way out, gentlemen. Maybe it's time to stop trying.

If you can make it here, well, you can probably do better elsewhere. Say, NYC, for instance. Ask Ben Kweller, Todd Deatherage, Corn Mo, the Secret Machines, Oceanographer (formerly Panda), N'Dambi and a handful of others, almost all of whom went on to bigger and brighter things once they ditched D-FW. Even Norah Jones cut bait before selling 10 million and counting.

Every weekday from noon to 2 p.m., Mitchell entertains a variety of guests--anyone from, say, Alan Dershowitz to Kinky Friedman--and the resulting conversations (they're more than mere interviews) never fail to entertain. Mitchell can hold his own no matter who's on the other side of his microphone, and his show will keep you in your car for a few extra minutes, or maybe make you postpone lunch a half-hour so you won't miss a word. That said, Mitchell wins (again) simply for Anything You Ever Wanted to Know, his every-Friday chance for listeners to find out, um, anything they ever wanted to know. And, no offense, but this is almost a forfeit: Apart from Mitchell and the fine fellas over at The Ticket, when it comes to talk radio in Dallas, you either get bad impersonations of Howard Stern (KYNG-FM, which also happens to have the real Stern) or very good impersonations of corpses (hello, KLIF).

Yeah, yeah, we know: the fake-drug scandal, the snit over salaries, turmoil at the top, demoralized troops, the crime rate. Why on earth would we name the Dallas Police Department the best government agency? Well, we haven't been shot, stabbed or otherwise assaulted in the past year, so that's a big plus. Then there's this: Somehow, through the enormous shit storm of the past two years, hundreds of loyal, honest officers have gotten out of bed each day, strapped on pistols and simply showed up to do a very tough job. That's gotta be worth something.

Photographs Do Not Bend offers rotating exhibits of both black-and-white and color photography, pulling from its stable of contemporary, still-producing artists and its extensive and varied archive and creating some of the best examples of the medium through themed or spontaneous exhibits. And, besides exhibiting some of the most intriguing modern and archive photography, PDNB also has a charm most galleries don't. Instead of bare rooms with sterile walls, this gallery is in a little house tucked back on Routh Street with creaky hardwood floors and occasionally a house pet running around.