Barbara earned a Bachelor of Music in 1961 at the University of Arizona, and a Master of Music Education in 1969 from the UA. She graduated from Holbrook (AZ) High School.

Barbara plays horn in the Arizona Symphonic Winds, a community band in Tucson; plays horn each August, in Silverton, CO with the Great Western Rocky Mountain Brass Band; plays contra bass in the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, Tucson, which she and her husband, Bill, a bassoonist, co-founded in 1979; and sings, plays bass and guitar with Wildflowers, a trio of longtime friends. She was a member for many years of Sirocco, a woodwind quintet, with her husband.

She is the Arizona Representative for the International Horn Society, and publishes Horn on the Range, a newsletter representing activities pertaining to the horn for Arizona and nearby areas. As such she recently traveled to La-Chaux-de-fonds, Switzerland, for its 39th Symposium.

Others activities include: first vice president of Lambda chapter, the Delta Kappa Gamma International for Women Educators; the chair of the Tucson-Almaty (KZ) Sister Cities Committee. She has three children, two grand children and one great grandchild.