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Barbara Karkabi Papers

 Collection
Identifier: 2012-003

This collection includes articles written by Karkabi, correspondence, notes and research materials. The collection is divided into ten series: Personal, Articles, Correspondence, Appointment Books, Houston Chronicle, Notes, Multi-Media, Publications, Research, and Ephemera. All series are arranged topically and chronologically.

Dates

  • 1971-2009
  • Majority of material found within 2000-2009

Conditions Governing Access

Open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Special Collections owns the physical items in our collections, but copyright normally belongs to the creator of the materials or their heirs. The researcher has full responsibility for determining copyright status, obtaining permission to publish from copyright holders, and abiding by current copyright laws when publishing or displaying copies of Special Collections material in print or electronic form. For more information, consult the appropriate librarian. Reproduction decisions will be made by Special Collections staff on a case-by-case basis.

Extent

11.5 linear feet

Biographical Information

Born Barbara Diane Farrar, she was the daughter of an English immigrant father and a mother of Portuguese descent in New York City on December 6, 1946. Barbara Karkabi worked as a journalist for the Houston Chronicle for thirty years. She attended parochial schools in Manhattan and earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from Syracuse University in 1968. For several years Karkabi worked as a reservations agent for Pan American Airways, travelling extensively around the world, especially to the Middle East and Asia. While living in Beirut, Lebanon in the mid-1970s, she began writing for the English-language newspaper, Daily Star, covering the nation’s civil war. At one point Karkabi was briefly kidnapped with a busload of Japanese travellers by armed Palestine guerillas.

After leaving Beirut, she moved to London, England with her husband Tony Karkabi, a Lebanese travel agent. In London, Barbara worked as a freelance journalist before moving to Houston, Texas in 1977. Before joining the Houston Chronicle, Karkabi wrote for Suburbia-Reporter, a weekly suburban newspaper in the Houston area. In 1979 she began her career with the Chronicle generating feature stories on a variety of topics ranging from health to women and religious issues to trends in the city’s minority communities. An article she wrote in 1990 about river blindness garnered the attention of local philanthropist John Moores. In response to the story, Moores donated $25 million to an effort by a University of Houston optometry professor, William Baldwin, to distribute a highly effective drug to those in need.

Besides her work with the Chronicle, Karkabi also spent time engaged in women’s organizations. She was a long time board member of Friends of Women's Studies, a nonprofit that supports the University of Houston's Women's Studies program and wrote the first story about the Carey C. Shuart Women's Archive and Research Collection at the UH Library. Karkabi also helped found the Association for Women Journalists Houston chapter in the 1990s.

Karkabi passed away on Saturday January 28, 2012, leaving husband Mike Snyder, also a Houston Chronicle reporter and editor, and daughter Megan Snyder, both of Houston, Texas.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Mike Snyder on March 1, 2012.

Related Materials

UH Women's Studies Program and Friends Collection

https://findingaids.lib.uh.edu/repositories/2/resources/179

Title
Guide to the Barbara Karkabi Papers
Author
Timothy Wyatt
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
English

Revision Statements

  • 2021-11-03: As a part of the 2021 Special Collections reparative description project, Brooks Whittaker added subject headings to this finding aid to better represent individuals and promote discoverability of collection materials.

Repository Details

Part of the University of Houston Libraries Special Collections Repository

Contact:
University of Houston Libraries Special Collections
MD Anderson Library
4333 University Drive
Houston TX 77204-2000 USA
713-743-9750