John Ardoin, (January 8, 1935 in Alexandria, Louisiana – March 18, 2001 in San José, Costa Rica), was best known as the music critic of The Dallas Morning News for thirty-two years and especially for his friendship with and encyclopedic knowledge of the work of the famous opera soprano, Maria Callas, about whom he wrote four books. But his influence stretched much further than Dallas, and he knew many of the most important figures in classical music of the postwar era.