Attorney Paul Nicholas Barna Jr., 82, passed away peacefully on September 2nd surrounded by his family in his home in Arlington, Virginia. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Paul and Hazel Barna, Paul lived most of his life in Monongahela, Pennsylvania where he and his beloved wife Peggy Anne (who predeceased him in 2010) lovingly raised a family of three daughters: Kathie, Jacki, and Beth.

Paul was the product of a Pennsylvania education of which he was proud. He began his schooling at Sampson Star School in Donora, proceeded to Mercersburg Academy in Chambersburg for his junior and high school years and thoroughly enjoyed his college years at Dickinson College in Carlisle. After graduating from Dickinson, Paul joined the U.S. Army for two years as a radio operator in Germany during the Korean War. Afterwards, he returned to Carlisle and entered his father's alma mater, Dickinson Law School. It was there that he met his wife of 51 years, Peggy Anne (nee Neff). Married during his last year of law school, he and Peggy Anne moved to the Monongahela Valley after his law school graduation where they began their family and Paul joined his father to practice law in Washington County.

During his 44 years of legal practice at Barna & Barna, Paul described himself as a "country lawyer" and took great personal interest in his clients and helping them achieve fair solutions to their every day legal problems. He spent many years working with his community as a solicitor for the Ringgold School Board and the Carroll Township Sewage Authority and was also a president of the Donora Rotary Club and a board member of the Washington Greene County Job Training Agency. Most noteworthy, Paul was always available to friends, neighbors, and often strangers for informal legal advice - much of it delivered on his back porch with Peggy Anne serving refreshments.

Paul loved being outdoors and spent many years on the golf course of the Monongahela Valley Country Club where he first learned the game from his father and, subsequently, taught it to his daughters and grandson. As a child, he was an avid gardener, often experimenting with grafting different types of fruit trees in his parents orchard and as a young father, he often had his daughters help him in planting rose and vegetable gardens at their Mar-Rick Manor home.

Paul often said that his greatest joy in life was his family and this sentiment was reflected in the warmth and devotion that he showed not only to his wife and daughters but also to his sisters Kyra and Denee. He was an adored uncle and great uncle (affectionately addressed as Uncle Putty) known for his gentleness and humor and a particularly wonderful friend to his grandson, who lovingly called him Buddy. Paul's kindness to family members was also extended to a long lineage of loyal family pets, two of which provided treasured companionship when he moved to a senior community three years ago.

Paul's ashes will be returned to his hometown of Monongahela at a later date and will be followed by a Celebration of Life gathering to which all of his friends and acquaintances are warmly invited. (Details of this will be printed in this same paper once confirmed.) Paul's daughters may be contacted at pnbjr3@gmail.com .