Barb Sieminski

Freelance Writer

Barb Sieminski is a freelance writer and photographer who received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art and English from St. Francis College. She edited various college publications and won several national poetry awards. A former associate editor of Our Sunday Visitor’s Young Catholic newspaper, she also wrote a 12-year column, "Of Songprints & Pinewoods" for Today's Catholic (1989-2001) and began writing for the publication again in 2015. Other publications to which she contributes include Florida Catholic, Marian Helpers Bulletin, Seventeen Magazine, Lakes, Silent News, Music Journal, Business People, Hoosier Outdoors, My Daily Visitor, National Lampoon, Saddle Action and The Fort Wayne News Sentinel. Barb served as former Fort Wayne, Ind., Mayor Paul Helmke’s staff writer (1989-93) and was also a riding instructor, Special Olympics horse show director and editor of the Red Cedar NewsRider at Red Cedar and other area barns for 15 years. Fishing, sailing, reading, music and riding are among her passions. A former outdoor columnist and past concert critic for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, she continues teaching music privately and has accompanied Masses at St. Mary and St. Therese Catholic churches over the years, believing that, “The musician has no need of applause if s/he can catch the ear of the Master.”

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Parish

There’s a family feeling at Queen of Angels

On July 4, 1947, the Independence Day holiday was celebrated in and around the city of Fort Wayne with fireworks, picnics, marching bands and the flag; but there was extra-special […]

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Special

Hoping amid adversity and relying on God: Deb Wagner

Deb Wagner uses an electric wheelchair, crutches and a walker. A member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Fort Wayne, she recalls how several times when she was younger, her […]

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Schools

Nick Bobay appointed principal of St. Therese

If new St. Therese principal Nick Bobay ever had any doubt that his teaching belonged in a Catholic school, it disappeared in 2013 when he temporarily left the Catholic school […]

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Special

St. Vincent de Paul Society luminary passes away

If she had just lived another 12 days, Cheryl Mowan would have celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary with her husband, Mike. Instead, Mowan entered the Lord’s presence Saturday, May 27, […]

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Special

Catholic filmmaker engages children through the arts

There was one brief, shining moment in 1976 that left its seal on Fort Wayne resident Michael Floyd’s heart. He was in Philadelphia for a Eucharistic Congress, where he encountered […]

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Special

Gift ideas for first communicants

It’s a milestone like no other in a young child’s life, and it means that a young person is growing up in the sanctity of the church. To celebrate the […]

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Special

Journeying through the mists of memory

When Patti Hagadorn attends Mass at St. Therese Catholic Church, Fort Wayne, she spends the hour not with her family or the other congregants, but seated alone in the confessional […]

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Local

Cheryl and Mike Mowan are love in motion

“One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.” By Barb Sieminski If this proverb is to be believed, many […]

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Local

Out of Africa

By Barb Seiminski It was only one and a half weeks, but it turned into a whole new world — a jam-packed lifetime, as it were — for Fort Wayne […]