Robert "Bob" Barrier

Bob, the eldest child of Elmore and Jodie Barrier, grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, moving with his family from Jonas Ridge to the town of Morganton when he was about 15 years old. After high school, he attended Berea College in Kentucky, where he met Jean Jessup, the love of his life, who also spent her childhood in the mountains but exhibits much less enthusiasm and nostalgia about having done so. Bob graduated from Berea in 1965 and earned his master’s degree from Vanderbilt University in 1967, the same year he and Jean married.

Bob started out teaching at DeKalb Junior College and then was a teaching assistant at the University of Georgia while pursuing his Ph.D. In 1976, the defining period of his career began when he was appointed to the English Department faculty at what was then Kennesaw College. He continued working on his dissertation while teaching, earning his Ph.D. (finally, mercifully) from UGA in 1980. During his thirty-seven years at KSU, Bob taught composition, rhetoric, and literature to thousands of students; directed the Writing Center from 1988 until his retirement from full-time teaching in 2011; and served as a faculty member in the Master of Arts in Professional Writing program after it was established in 1995. He was particularly fond of teaching 19th century American literature and the American ghost story.

After fully retiring in 2013, Bob continued to focus on his love of literature and enjoyed participating in a classics study group with several dear former colleagues. He also devoted time to baseball research and genealogy. He was a member of the Magnolia (Atlanta area) Chapter of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research, where he made good friends and enjoyed researching, writing about, and giving conference presentations on re-created baseball broadcasts, the rhetoric of newspaper accounts of games, early baseball history, and the minor leagues. For years he gave much of his time and energy to his beloved Cobb County Genealogical Society, serving as an officer and board member, editor of CCGS’s Family Tree Quarterly, and facilitator of the special interest group on writing about family history.

Bob’s interest in sports was not limited to baseball research. He was a longtime fan of the Atlanta Braves, and though he spent most of his life in Georgia, he was always a North Carolina boy at heart and, as such, rooted for the Carolina Panthers instead of the Falcons. But his fanaticism and loyalty were reserved for the highs and lows of UNC Tar Heel basketball.

Fortunately for his family, Bob loved them more than Carolina basketball. He is survived by wife Jean; daughter Emily Keener, son-in-law David, and beloved granddaughter Edie, of Acworth; his siblings Allen (Paulette) Barrier, Charles (Linda, deceased) Barrier, and Betty Propst, of Morganton, NC; and many beloved nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, and nieces and nephews thrice removed. (As Bob might have said, understanding “times removed” is where genealogy really comes in handy.) Family’s not being limited to blood, he is also survived by Larry and Kay Anderson, Bob and Jean’s wonderful friends and travel companions for more than fifty years.

Bob and Jean have been longtime, devoted members of Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Marietta. A memorial service will be held there on Saturday, February 28, 2026, at 1 p.m. with a reception to follow. Associate Pastor Anne Cumings will officiate. A private inurnment at the columbarium at the Mt. Zion cemetery will take place at a future date. In lieu of sending flowers, those who wish to honor Bob are asked to donate in his memory to Mt. Zion UMC, Must Ministries, or the Bookmobile (readingtogoplaces.org). And it would please him greatly if you, Dear Reader, would put your own pen to paper and write down something worth remembering about your own family history.