A new pathway connecting the Hall Center for the Humanities to the rest of the Kansas University campus honors a longtime Lawrence attorney.

Before a ceremony on Thursday to honor Richard A. Barber, Hall Center director Victor Bailey said that the pathway is one of those little things on campus that don’t always get addressed while other pressing items are attended to.

The path runs along the east side of the Hall Center on Sunnyside Avenue to near the Facilities Operations building south of Stauffer-Flint Hall, connecting the Hall Center to the rest of campus.

“Now I see people walk up and down there all day,” Bailey said of the path, which has been open since summer. “People were using the side of the building before; they were just creating cow paths.”

Barber, who lent his name to the Barber Emerson law firm in Lawrence, had been a friend of the university and the humanities before his death in 1998, said Tom Murray, a Lawrence area attorney and Barber’s stepson.

Murray said Barber graduated from KU as an undergraduate and a law student in the 1930s, and would go on to receive the Fred Ellsworth Medallion from the Kansas University Alumni Association in 1987.

The pathway was made possible after a donation from Jane Veatch Barber, Barber’s wife.

Murray said the dedication of the path in Barber’s name was appropriate.

“It’s a very nice recognition of Dick Barber, who was such a wonderful citizen for many years,” Murray said.

The Hall Center serves as a research center for faculty and graduate students in the humanities and fine arts. It sponsors programs and lecture series for the university and surrounding community.

Murray, who has served on the Hall Center’s advisory board for 20 years, said he has seen the center flourish during that time.

“We have a great variety of programs in any given year that enrich the humanities,” he said.