KC theater instructor honored for excellence in teaching

KATHY BARBER

Kilgore College theater instructor Kathy Barber will be honored by Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre for her excellence as a theater director and educator.

She will be honored 6 p.m., May 3, at the annual W. K. Waters Convocation of the School of Theatre in Turner Auditorium of the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the university's campus in Nacogdoches. Barber is the director of the KC Theater Department.

According to Scott Shattuck, SFASU's theater director, each year the faculty seeks to identify an alumna or alumnus that exemplifies success and service among SFASU theater graduates, whether in professional theater and media, theater education or another field in which the grad is using his or her SFASU education. The selection is made from among School of theater alumni who are nominated in a confidential process by members of the faculty.

"Barber was chosen by the faculty especially because of her great contributions to theater education in the state of Texas," Shattuck said. "She will receive a trophy and her name will be inscribed on a plaque in the lobby of Turner Auditorium."

Barber, a KC graduate, received a Bachelor of Arts in theater from Sam Houston State in 1970, and a Master of Arts in theater from SFASU in 1984. She also taught at the university from 1983-84. She currently has 50 hours toward her doctorate from Texas Tech University.

She began her teaching career as the drama instructor at Sam Houston High School in Houston in 1971 before taking the job as costuming assistant and graduate directing student at the University of Houston in 1974. She began teaching at KC in January of 1989 as an instructor in the theater program. She became lead instructor of that program in 2004. Barber has also directed several plays for the Texas Shakespeare Festival and summer theater workshops at Texas Tech.

Throughout her career, she has been assistant director for two Broadway plays, production assistant for films, directed several regional and dinner theaters and was assistant director for the Houston Shakespeare Festival as well as the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn.

In 2005, Barber was honored with the Texas Educational Theatre Association's Founders Award for "excellence in teaching and supporting educational theater in Texas." In 2001, she was cited by Sam Houston State University as an Outstanding Alumni, and in 2000, she was honored as the Educator of the Year by the Texas Educational Theatre Association. She is on the Texas Educational Theatre Association Board of Directors.

"Miss Barber has provided many years of outstanding leadership in the theater program and has touched the lives of countless students with her passion for the theater," said Terry Booker, KC's dean of liberal and fine arts. "She is very deserving of this award and I am thrilled that she will be recognized for all of her hard work."