It is with bittersweet excitement that we announce that retail writer Maria Halkias will retire on June 1 after almost 41 years at The Dallas Morning News. She is a legend in the Dallas retail and business community.

Beyond the massive hole she will leave socially in the newsroom is the absence we will feel from her unmatched reporting, Maria Halkias is one of our most prolific writers, tirelessly publishing stories that are deeply sourced, authoritative and focused on serving our local readers. She consistently leads the charts in pageviews and conversions and is a prominent national voice covering her industry. Few know the players in the Dallas business community the way she does and none have her encyclopedic knowledge of the retail beat.

Maria came to The News in 1983 after three years at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, and after working at her hometown newspaper, The Post-Tribune in Gary, Indiana, for two years. Her first job was at WNWI Radio in Valparaiso. She’s a graduate of Valparaiso University in Indiana with a BS in political science, an emphasis in journalism and a minor in business.

Early in her career she covered crime, local and state government before moving into business and covering the Texas economy and then energy, which took her to OPEC meetings in Vienna, Alaska and Mexico.

She won awards from the University of Missouri, Texas APME and Headliners Foundation, among others, and was DMN Business Reporter of the Year in 2020. Maria is often tapped to help with reporter training for organizations such as SABEW (Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing).

Maria will be sorely missed in the business department and across the newsroom. Few people have been so welcoming to the dozens of staff writers who have come through our doors during her four decades here. Everyone is a friend to Maria. She makes the world’s best Baklava in a fitting ode to her Greek-American upbringing. Her “Not-on-deadline Dinners” at her home have made so many of us transplants feel like family in Texas.

Please join us in wishing Maria well as she embarks on her post-journalism life with her husband, Lowery, her adult son, Robert, his wife Rachel, and their adorable pup, Bean. Her last day in the office is May 31.