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Photograph by Matthew O'Shea
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As fun as each year’s July issue is to produce, it’s also one of the most time-consuming for the editorial staff. We spend nearly four months putting together our annual A-List, which recognizes the best this city has to offer across a range of areas like dining, shopping, and culture. (During the other eight months, we’re often making notes for next year’s list.) It’s our duty, after all, to try (one might say “demolish”) multiple desserts before crowning one the A-List winner. It is work we do nobly. And in the case of the 2009 dessert winner—Hubert Keller’s fanciful Chocolate Sweet Burger from his Burger Bar—it is work we do with a very wide smile whose purpose is to soon transfer to you.
This year, we added a new element to this schedule, unusual for a July SLM: a major profile of one of the A-List winners, local legend-in-the-making Joe Buck. After a few months scheduling the various interviews and photo shoots, senior editor Jarrett Medlin was able to just plain hang out with the famous sports announcer for a full two days in May: in Busch Stadium; during Buck-led drives through his memory’s markers; at the Ladue home where he lives with his wife and daughters. That someone of Buck’s stature was willing to completely open up his schedule was great news for us. That he spoke so candidly—about growing up as Jack Buck’s son, as well as about finding his own success—is great news for readers.
It’s always our hope that come July, our readers are out there trying some of the A-List winners we’ve recognized, from a kids’ class to a summer cocktail, a new art gallery to a late-night coffeehouse. And after reading Jarrett’s highly personal profile of Buck, we suspect you’ll also be tuning in to hear the broadcaster call the July 14 All-Star Game, live from our own downtown. There may be 10 million people watching that evening, but you’ll be among those who better know the man behind the mic: from some of his most moving memories of his father to his go-to song for karaoke night and his own A-List picks. The local boy has made more than good, and we now feel like we know him well. Pick up a copy of the issue to meet Joe Buck.
Stephen Schenkenberg
