Bill Tammeus is former Faith section columnist for The Kansas City Star and a current monthly columnist for The Presbyterian Outlook as well as a biweekly columnist for The National Catholic Reporter. 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, when the column was canceled amid many staff and budget cuts at the paper. But he continues to write his daily "Faith Matters" blog at http://billtammeus.typepad.com. He also writes a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook and a biweekly column for The National Catholic Reporter. Links to those columns can be found at his blog.

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. His new book, due out this summer, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust. For information see: www.theywerejustpeople.com.

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