Bill Tammeus

Bill Tammeus is the former Faith section columnist for The Kansas City Star. He came to The Star in 1970 as a reporter, spent nearly 27 years on the paper's editorial page and then moved his column in March 2004 to the weekly Faith section. He took formal retirement in mid-2006 but continued as Faith section columnist on a freelance basis until mid-November 2008. He currently writes the "Faith Matters" blog on the Star's website, a column for The Presbyterian Outlook, a column for Flatland (KCPT-TV's digital magazine) and book reviews for The National Catholic Reporter.

A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Bill was a member of the Star staff that won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. His many other awards include several from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the American Academy of Religion, in addition to receiving the 2005 Wilbur Award given each year to the best religion column in the country. He received the David Steele Distinguished Writer Award from the Presbyterian Writers Guild in 2003 and is the author of "A Gift of Meaning", published by the University of Missouri Press in 2001; co-author of "They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust," published in 2009 by the University of Missouri Press; author of "Visitation: A Century of Faith," (2009); author of "Woodstock: A Story of Middle Americans" (2014); co-author with Paul Rock of "Jesus, Pope Francis and a Protestant Walk into a Bar: Lessons for the Christian Church" (2015), and author of "The Value of Doubt: Why Unanswered Questions, Not Unquestioned Answers, Build Faith" (2016). His next book, "Love, Loss and Endurance: A 9/11 Story of Resilience and Hope in an Age of Anxiety," will be published in early 2021.

Bill is past president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He's married to Marcia Tammeus. Between them they have six children and eight grandchildren.

Visit Bill's blog at http://billtammeus.typepad.com.