Barr awarded FLC students close to $250,000 in the last 15 years, in portions of no less than $750, and often as much as $2,000, a semester per student. Many were the years when the total support to multiple awardees was upward of $30,000. These gifts did change lives, do so now and will continue to do so in perpetuity.

Perhaps Barr was truly “old school” (if we’ll pardon that cliché). She taught in one-room schoolhouses. She shoveled coal and snow. A story is told that she occasionally had to shoo bears away from school grounds. She was firm, demanding and determined in the classic sense. It must also be said that Barr was “new school” – a model for brand-new teachers – in that she engaged the world with her work. She represented and continues to prove a model for the self-motivated, multitalented and universal educator. Barr taught everyone she came to know: students, parents, colleagues and administrators, up and down a vertical continuum. By the grace of her financial support of our students, she will assist future teachers along a horizontal spectrum into time, into the future. Her work moves back and forward in time, backward in fond stories, forward in unending influence.

William Arthur Camp

Durango