Barbara Flanagan, journalist, writer, community civic activist was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and attended Drake University as a drama major in the early 1940s. After a summer working for the Minneapolis Times, Flanagan dropped out of college in 1945, moved to Minneapolis and began to work full time in the promotion department for the Times.

Later she worked nights as a general assignment reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune and in 1957 she was named women's editor of the Minneapolis Star and the Minneapolis Tribune. Flanagan continued to work for both papers, even after she was given a daily column in the Star. From this platform, Flanagan spoke out for the next twenty-three years on a variety of social issues, most effectively on urban renewal and the preservation of historic buildings in Minneapolis's downtown.

During the 1970s Flanagan wrote two books. The first, Minneapolis, (1973), celebrates the city's cultural, social and environmental highlights. The second, Ovation, in 1977, commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Minnesota Orchestra. She retired from the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1988. In 1967, she married Earl Sanford, an investment consultant.