Barry Stark has the distinction of staying around NIU longer than almost any other Northern Star Hall of Famer. Barry spent four years as an undergraduate, then utilized his photography skills to land a job with the NIU News Bureau. He’d carry a camera in DeKalb for the next 29 years.

He did take a four-year leave to enter the U.S. Air Force, where he worked as a weather observer at Forbes Air Force Base in Kansas and then overseas at Soc Trang Army Air Field in Vietnam. But once back at NIU in 1970, Irv Kummerfeldt hired him at the NIU News Bureau. When that office was disbanded in 1972, Barry transferred to the Art Photo Department (now called Media Services) and remained chief photographer there until retiring in 1999.

While an undergraduate, Barry had joined both The Norther yearbook staff and the Northern Star as photographer and cartoonist.

“I learned the power of the press,” he says. “One of my cartoons, the Russell Road pothole pathos, caused people to send copies of the cartoon to the mayor and the road got repaired … somewhat.  Later, it was republished when the problem came up again and the city finally took action and repaved all of Russell Road.”

Barry’s photography was widely distributed throughout the nation in connection with NIU and his exhibits have been seen over the years on campus, at the Norris Gallery in St. Charles, College of DuPage and Gallery 200 in West Chicago. The awards have been many, including from the Illinois Press Association and from Communication Arts Magazine.

Since retiring, Barry has kept busy as a photo instructor at the College of DuPage, and also takes on numerous freelance assignments for Chicago area corporate clients, magazines and nonprofits.

“I still use a modified version of Hallie Hamilton’s syllabus,” he says. “Hallie’s class helped me with my Star assignments, and I still teach my students the same principles today. Had it not been for my Star experience, I may have gone an entirely different direction in my life and not been as satisfied as I feel today.”

Barry’s sideline work as editorial cartoonist for the Press-Republican newspapers and Liberty Newspapers spanned 20 years, from 1983 to 2003. His outside interests include golf, aviation history and even a fountain pen and vintage pencils collection. He and Anne, his wife of 41 years, have a son, Brett, who is married and lives in Colorado.