bio by alan peppard (01.04):
Her 1978 marriage to Jordan 's King Hussein catapulted Queen Noor into
the public consciousness as a beautiful, exotic royal. But her roots run
deep in Dallas , and when she returned here this month to appear at the
Hatton W. Sumners Lecture Series, it was something of a homecoming. The
former Lisa Halaby, Her Majesty is the daughter of former Pan-Am
Airlines chairman and CEO Najeeb Halaby, who was born in Dallas in 1915.
His father immigrated to Texas from Syria in 1890 and began working with
Stanley Marcus. He eventually opened his own boutique in Neiman's that
he ran until his death. Najeeb was appointed head of the Federal
Aviation Administration by President John Kennedy. He died last summer
from congestive heart failure. And if all of that doesn't make the queen
a Texan, she is also a Dallas Cowboys fan.
Copyright 2004 The Dallas Morning News