My grandfather, Dr. Woody Snodgrass, and favorite extended relative died tonight around midnight. He was 96.
Here's a little bio (with some small edits by me) taken from the lifetime service award he was given at the age of 90, by the school district out in California:
Dr. Woody Snodgrass was born on June 24, 1913 in Blackfoot, Idaho. Dr. Snodgrass moved from Idaho to Richmond in 1924 with his mother, father, and sister. He began his career with the District in 1937 as a classroom teacher at Roosevelt Junior High School. Over the next four decades he would serve the District as teacher, principal, and eventually Superintendent of the entire Richmond Unified School District.
Dr. Snodgrass retired on June 29, 1976, but this only signaled a new phase of his involvement with the District. From 1977 to 1989, Dr. Snodgrass served as the District's Chief Negotiator. In November 1989 he successfully ran for the office of the Board of Trustees, and was re-elected in 1993. In September 1998 Dr. Snodgrass was selected to serve on the Citizen's Advisory Commission for District School Facilities. Then-School Board President Charles Ramsey appointed Dr. Snodgrass as chair of the commission. Dr. Snodgrass
currently serves on the District's Oversight Committee for Measures M and D.
I italicized the "currently" bit to highlight the fact that at 90, he was still working on a committee. If you have to go, he went as well as you could. He was getting forgetful to be sure, but he never lost his faculties, never had a serious illness, and still lived in his own house albeit assisted by a nurse.
