May 31, 2011

Rick Barr, production manager at The Catholic Telegraph for more than 25 years, died suddenly May 21 at his home in Batavia. He was 57.

A memorial service is scheduled for June 21 at 1 p.m. at the Nazarene Church in Urbana. Inurnment will follow at Oakdale Cemetery.

A native of Urbana, Barr attended Urbana High School and Cincinnati State College. He worked for the Community Press before assuming the position of production manager at The Catholic Telegraph in August 1995. He resigned his position with the newspaper last October.

In addition to overseeing several redesigns of the newspaper, Barr created The Catholic Telegraph Photography Project, an online photo blog that included historical information from old issues of The Catholic Telegraph. He also pushed for the digitization of historical issues of the paper, a project begun with the Civil War years, now preserved digitally for historical record.