News

Get to Know Robin Snider
Mobile Register - July 2008

By Penelope McClenny

Long before Daphne police Sgt. Robin Snider knew he wanted to be a police officer, he definitely knew his future boss.

"You do something, Joe Hall's gonna get you!" Snider said his grandmother often used this as a threat to keep him on the straight and narrow, referring to the former Daphne chief who led the department for 35 years and later became Snider's boss.

Throughout his youth, Snider managed to stay away from anything that would lead him to Hall and his Police Department. Instead, he spent his days honing his sports skills with cousins and neighbors.

"The toughest competition I had, even in high school and college, was playing against some of my cousins and friends in the backyards. You got pride on the line," he said. "If we made the mistake, if someone got the better of someone, we would tease them.

Everyone that played with us, we were either top athletes at high school or the city leagues. We developed some good athletes in the corn fields and soybean fields and the backyards."

Although Snider spent much of his high school football career on the bench injured, that backyard experience helped lead him to his next step in life.

"I never really planned on going to a college," Snider said, but after some time at a junior college in Selma, he walked on to the football team of a small Lutheran school in Nebraska.

"I walked on, made the team, started and got my education paid for through sports," he said of his tenure at Concordia University. "We didn't win many games, but it was fun."

Snider majored in social work, and mistakenly thought the degree he earned would get him an instant job back home.

"College degree? No problem getting a job. Wrong!" Snider said. He worked a few jobs here and there until a friend and former high school football teammate convinced him to give police work a try.

"I never had any problems with the police growing up, I just didn't picture myself doing police work," Snider said. "He showed me the fun side of it."

Snider rode along with his friend a few times, and ended up applying for a job. He worked in dispatch for a stint, then eventually became a patrol officer.

Later he became involved in D.A.R.E., a worldwide program that mentors children from elementary to high school and teaches them the dangers of drugs and other abusive substances. Recently, he was named the state officer for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and now supervises training for all D.A.R.E. officers in Alabama.

Snider said the new position connects him to something for which he's always had a passion - working with children. Even as a teenager, he said he enjoyed mentoring younger children in Sunday school classes, helping train other students in the weight room or tutoring throughout high school and college.

As he looks forward to his new line of work with the department, Snider said he will always carry a fondness and respect for patrol.

"When I hear that siren or see that police light, even if I'm in the car with my uniform on, it still gets my attention," he said.

Backyard football leads Daphne resident to college degree

Birthplace: Chicago

Hometown: Montrose

Family: Children, Cornelius, Courtney and Robyn

Occupation: Police sergeant

Activities: Working out, home improvement, movies

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