Alan Peppard, who died Saturday night, had long been known as a society columnist, one who seemingly knew every mover and shaker in town. But even those who knew him and worked with him were surprised when he began to write long, narrative features of immensely high quality.

Not that we didn't believe he could do it. We just hadn't seen it before, and the stories he produced carried with them the adjective writers love most — they were memorable. Unforgettable. Gorgeously written. Incredibly insightful. They were, separately and collectively, a knockout punch.

My own favorite was one Alan wrote for our package of stories on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. People of a younger generation may not know that accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had, in the months before Kennedy died, fired a shot at former Major Gen. Edwin A. Walker. The would-be homicide occurred on Walker's property on Turtle Creek Boulevard in the Park Cities, a community Alan knew better than anyone.

But the Peppard pantheon also included another remarkable piece about Kennedy. Alan unearthed rare footage and photographs that showed Kennedy leading a motorcade parade through downtown Dallas during his 1960 presidential campaign that proved to be eerily similar to the one that claimed his life in 1963.

“In light of what the next decade would bring,” Peppard wrote, “John F. Kennedy's 1960 trip to Dallas seems like a vignette from romantic fiction.”

As someone who has written extensively about the assassination, I had never heard of the 1960 motorcade, which proved to be an eerie foreshadowing of what would happen in 1963. Best of all, the piece carried with it Robert Caro-like research.

As my former Dallas Morning News colleague, Joyce Sáenz Harris, said Sunday, she had long known that Alan "was a sharp observer of society and a clever, witty columnist. But not until later in his career did I realize what a gifted writer he really was. He used his deep interest in history, his abilities as a meticulous researcher and his wide connections in Texas and beyond to write fascinating pieces."

Harriet Blake, who worked with Alan during her days as editor of the High Profile section of The News, called him "a fun and entertaining colleague, a caring friend and a terrific writer."

His yearning to be a writer got started at Southern Methodist University, where, he later told friends, his favorite professor was David McHam, to whom he gave credit for launching his career in journalism.

"I owe it all to David," Alan once said.

McHam said Sunday that he met Peppard when he was teaching a summer class in beginning writing in the early 1980s.

"I noticed right away that he could write," said McHam, who called Peppard one of the most likable people he's ever met.

"He was outstanding. He made an A in my class. And then he took a couple more classes from me. And then I helped get him the internship at D magazine, and that really was the start of his career. Once he saw that he could write, that changed everything."

Judge Sarah T. Hughes sits between Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy as their motorcade departs Fort Worth's Burk Burnett Park on Sept. 13, 1960. (Clint Grant / Staff Photographer)

Bob Mong, who served as editor of The News from 2001 to 2015, said Sunday that he felt Alan "really came into his own" when composing the pieces he wrote for the 50th anniversary of JFK's death.

Until then, Mong said, “I did not fully appreciate what a great narrative writer he was.”

With a laugh, Mong shared his own favorite story about Peppard. It happened in, of all places, a small town in eastern British Columbia, where his son was playing a hockey game. There, Mong recalled, he saw a woman reading Vanity Fair. He decided to walk over, because, after all, one of his star writers had a piece scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair.

“I went to this lady and said, ‘Sorry to disturb you, but are you from Dallas?' " Mong recalled. “She said 'No, I’m from British Columbia.’ So I asked her, ‘Might I ask you what you’re reading?’ And she said, ‘I’m reading this great story about a feud between a father and son in a Texas oil family.’ And I said, ‘I know the author.’ She said, ‘Are you kidding me?' "

As Lisa Kresl, Peppard's longtime supervisor, said Sunday, "He wrote authoritatively for Vanity Fair about the Hunt family and definitively about Clint Murchison Sr. in his three-part series 'Islands of the Oil Kings.' He was one of the first narrative writers to understand the value of video and multimedia storytelling."

While Air Force Two refuels in Austin, Vice President George H.W. Bush watches the TV replay of the shooting of Ronald Reagan with House Majority Leader Jim Wright, Texas Gov. Bill Clements and Rita Clements (on sofa). Dallas Congressman Jim Collins kneels on Bush's left. March 30, 1981. (White House / George Bush Presidential Library)

As Kresl said, Alan "grew up in Dallas society and knew everyone. Need a quote from Jerry Jones? Charlotte? Mark Cuban? George W? Alan was on it. He played polo and traveled internationally ... He always had a table at Al Biernat’s where ‘Alan’s Traditional Eggs Benedict’ was named for him.”

He was a proud graduate of Greenhill School, where, Kresl said, he was also a board member.

“He loved to hold court at Hillstone,” she said, and “one of his proudest moments was when his daughter’s mathematics team at Hockaday beat MIT.”

Dallas Morning News reporter Alan Peppard (left) pores over an oil and gas map with T. Boone Pickens in the boardroom on Pickens' Mesa Vista Ranch in the panhandle of Texas near the town of Miami. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

In 2015, Alan wrote a terrific piece about how then-Vice President George H.W. Bush asserted control in 1981 in the wake of would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. wounding President Ronald Reagan.

Among the people Alan came to know, Texas giant T. Boone Pickens was at the top of the list. In 2017, because of Alan, that allowed us a telling glimpse into Pickens' private world, when he shared an exclusive look at the oil magnate's massive Panhandle ranch.

Caricature of the late radio personality Kidd Kraddick on the wall at the Palm restaurant in Dallas.

Alan shared with us special insights about the magic of radio personality Kidd Kraddick, a year after Kraddick's death.

Helen Anders, a fellow society columnist who worked with Alan for eight years when she was known as Helen Bryant, put it best in saying, "Nobody did it like he did. He was, himself, the life of the party in all the best ways. Princes loved hanging out with him. He knew everybody and could converse easily with anybody. He knew where the bodies were buried, but he never told. And, of course, he was a delightful writer. He never really believed how good he was."

And we will all miss him. But like the very best writers, he left behind an incredible body of work, one we will treasure forever.