Snyder continues proud legacy

RITZVILLE – When he's not waving to the crowd from a classic car in the Labor Day parade, Jerry Snyder, this year's grand marshal, steers tractors over ground homesteaded and plowed by his great-grandfather.

As a fourth-generation farmer, the 72-year-old traces his Eastern Washington roots to the early 1900s when Birney Moses Snyder first arrived from Michigan.

"My great-grandfather didn't like the mess after the Civil War, so in 1909 he traveled here in a covered wagon with my grandpa," Snyder said. "The first place they staked a claim had lots of water but rocky ground.

"They sold that place and worked for a man named Dawson who eventually sold the land to my grandfather Benton."

Jerry Snyder speaks with admiration of his great grandfather's days as a circuit-riding Methodist minister. Small congregations in Paha, Packard, Cunningham, Hatton, Lind, Washtucna and Ralston heard the preaching of B.M. Snyder.

His great-grandfather's obituary appeared in the May 11, 1933, edition of The Journal-Times. According to the article, B.M. Snyder enlisted at age 18 in the Tenth Michigan Infantry and served in the Civil War.

It said, in part, "B.M. Snyder, the last survivor of the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) in Adams County, has answered taps."

Eventually the Snyder family established a farm seven miles southeast of Ralston on a 320-acre tract.

"Ralston was a pretty big city in the early 1900s, so a lot of our business revolved around that place," Jerry Snyder said. "My father Lester was born in Ralston and married my mom there in 1948."

Both Jerry and his younger sister Janet graduated from Washtucna High School and Washington State University. He notes with pride that his mother also earned a master's degree from Eastern Washington University at the age of 50.

"She wrote books and traveled extensively for the Department of Education. She developed charter schools and wrote a lot of grants," he said.

"At one point, she engineered a $40,000 grant to revamp the town of Kahlotus. Storefronts were rebuilt, streets paved, and new signage installed."

About 5,000 people - including Gov. Dan Evans, Sens. Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson, and other dignitaries - attended a celebratory parade, according to Snyder.

After a two-year stint teaching agriculture and coaching at Palouse, Jerry Snyder returned to Ralston and dated a local girl, Gretchen Meyer.

The couple married in 1978 and their children, Sarah and Jason, were born in the 1980s.

Snyder and his wife homeschooled their kids through the eighth-grade, and both children graduated from Christian Heritage School in Edwall.

His daughter works as a nurse at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. His son graduated from community college with a degree in heating and air conditioning, and is fire commissioner in Washtucna.

Like his predecessors, Jerry Snyder has been active in various community organizations. He has served as chairman of the Soil Conservation District for Adams County, chairman of the Farm Service Agency committee, and is currently president of the Ralston grange.

"I also became very involved with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers," he said.

He became state president and served on the national board, traveling frequently to Washington, DC.

While serving with WAWG, he concentrated on youth issues.

"In the late 1980s, we had a lot of problems with youth suicides, especially around the holidays," he recalled. To address this issue, Snyder initiated a program called "The All Nighters" for kids on New Year's Eve.

"We had a dance at the school until midnight, went to the theater for a show, then to the bowling alley, then back to the school for breakfast," he said.

Snyder has also employed his farming skills and equipment to help the community. When the new fairgrounds was being built, he and his father used their backhoe to dig a pipeline from the high school to the current fairgrounds site.

Snyder later learned that a pressure restrictor hadn't been installed on the water line.

"When I visited the fairgrounds in the spring and flushed toilets in the men's bathroom, the water hit the ceiling," he said. "They had 120 pounds of pressure down there. We shut everything down, dug it all up, drained the pipes and installed a pressure restrictor."

Snyder has garnered praise for his auctioneering and piano playing, as well.

"At one point, we held an auction at our church to raise money for missions," he said. "The auctioneer took $300 for that night's work. I thought the cost was exorbitant, so I thought, 'If he can do it, I can do it.'"

To learn the auctioneering skill, Snyder played and replayed an auctioneer's song from the early 1960s.

"I would sit on the tractor, listen to that song, and record myself on tape," he said. "After a few years, my mom told me, 'If you can stand in front of a mirror and auctioneer without laughing, you're probably ready.'"

Audiences have also enjoyed Snyder's piano renditions.

From the age of 5 or 7, he's had a gift of "playing by ear."

His mother observed that he could pick out melodies on his grandmother's piano. So, she signed him up for piano lessons with teachers Esther West and later Eleanor Snyder in Washtucna.

"Unbeknownst to a lot of people, Eleanor had graduated from the Julliard School of Music," he said. "From her, I learned Bach and Beethoven. But neither of us recognized that I was playing by ear and wasn't reading music notation. The more she played, the more I memorized."

At the age of 8, Snyder tried out for the Spokane Symphony. "I played two pieces and became one of the final three contestants," he said. "But when they set a piece of sheet music in front of me, I was 'dead meat.'"

Snyder likes to sing as well. "I was with a gospel group for about 12 years," he recalled. "I prefer to sing or play piano - not both at the same time. I hear the music in my head and it can be confusing when I'm playing piano in one direction and trying to sing in another."

Snyder remembers his college years of playing piano on weekends at Dirty Ernie's Tavern in Troy, Idaho. "I walked in and noticed chicken wire next to the piano," he said. "They told me loggers would throw beer bottles at me if they didn't like the music."

Fortunately, he never had to test that theory.

"I'd ask them what they wanted to hear, then I'd play it by ear. Sometimes I'd play the same tune nine times in a row. The more libation they imbibed, the less quality I had to produce."

Snyder said he's honored to be selected this year's Grand Marshal.

"A lot of people in this community have been generous with their time and talents," he said. "I'm not an exception. In these small communities, we all have to do our part to keep things going."