5_spot, I'm sure that whoever you spoke to at the club will be a lot of help. Most of the people I've spoken to at clubs are nothing if not helpful. One thing that I might suggest is that you take a trip (for you, it'd probably be about a 45 minute drive) over to [link=http://www.mikeshobbyshop.com/index.html]Mike's Hobby Shop[/link] in Carrollton. It's the biggest hobby shop I know of in the Metroplex area and they are extremely helpful. Also, they are more than willing to tell you what the price of a plane will be. I will tell you though, plan on spending at half the day there if you are at all interested in the hobby. They have pretty much everything you could imagine (except jets). (oh, and no, I'm not affiliated with them, just trying to be helpful).

Also, there are at least a couple of people on RCU that fly at the Rockwall club (Bearmech is the one I can think of right now). I've flown out there on one of their open house days when I was trying to get my brother into the hobby and they are a bunch of really nice people. If it didn't take me an hour to get there from my house, I'd consider flying there more often. Look up Bearmech, I'm sure he'll be more than willing to help you, or at least he'll be able to direct you to someone who can.