Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Snouffer, Gary Hanson July 7, 2024
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Robert Woolfitt http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008401 February 3, 2025, 3:00 pm

H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. July 2024
Gary Hanson Snouffer, 91, a longtime Cincinnati resident, passed away peacefully 
on July 7, 2024, with his wife Ruth and son David at his bedside in a retirement 
community in Virginia Beach after a short illness. He is also survived by 
sister-in-law Sandra Snouffer and her son Thomas Tullous of Dallas, nephew by 
marriage William Larche (Lalan) of Round Rock, Tex., and first cousin by 
marriage William Horning (Katherine) of Cincinnati. He was predeceased by his 
brother Joe of Dallas and sister-in-law Fran Larche (James) of Marietta, Ga.
Gary was born in Beckley, W.Va., on May 15, 1933, to Harry Hanson Snouffer, a 
management employee of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, native to the Columbus, 
Ohio area, and the former Cleo Cheap of Ashland, Ky. Midway through elementary 
school, Gary’s family moved to Marion, Ohio, where his father managed a C&O 
repair yard. Gary attended Marion’s Harding High School, where he was a football 
place kicker—his father having played for Ohio Wesleyan’s successful team in the 
1920s—and was a choral singer, taking after his mother, who played the piano by 
ear. Gary and Ruth began dating while at Harding.
From there, Gary went to Oxford, Ohio, to attend Miami University, where he 
majored in broadcasting, managed the campus radio station, WMUB, sang in the 
Men’s Glee Club and served as its president, and was song leader for his 
fraternity, Lambda Chi, leading his brothers on a series of expeditions to 
serenade their girlfriends.
Gary’s first job, as a radio announcer in Warren, Ohio, was cut short by the 
military draft. With little time before Gary’s first assignment, he and Ruth 
(then Ruth Anne Smith) were married on Ruth’s lawn in Marion. Gary was assigned 
to the Army Intelligence unit at Fort Holabird, taking Ruth with him to 
Baltimore for the last year of her B.S. degree from Miami. Over ensuing decades, 
Gary and Ruth met up with Army buddies for reunions.
From the Army, in the late 1950s, Gary moved to Dayton to begin a long career in 
the life insurance field, initially under the tutelage of Bill Staley and 
selling policies for Midland Mutual. Gary and Ruth were involved in the Dayton 
Jaycees and the Jaycee Wives, respectively, where they met life-long friends 
loosely organized as the “City Club” (the Kerns, Logans, McCoys, Reinharts, 
Snouffers, Somerses and Wingers). A core group of four couples played bridge 
monthly and sometimes vacationed on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Gary’s career segued to writing and editing in 1967, when he joined National 
Underwriter, an insurance publisher, taking him and his family to Cincinnati, 
where he lived until 2022, first on the outskirts of Pleasant Ridge and then in 
the Kenwood area. In the evenings, Gary taught Chartered Life Underwriter 
courses.
In 1971, after a City Club connection alerted Gary to G.I. benefits, he began 
night classes at Chase College of Law, then at Cincinnati’s downtown YMCA. Chase 
was soon integrated into Northern Kentucky State College, requiring a commute to 
the Park Hills, Kentucky campus, where Gary received his J.D. in 1975.
Gary had not completed law school in 1973 when his new qualifications helped 
land him a position with Union Central Life (now Ameritas) at its new home 
office campus in Cincinnati’s Forest Park, where he led advanced sales and then 
advanced marketing efforts, helped develop new products such as universal life 
and frequently traveled around the country as a resource to agents in the field. 
After retirement from Union Central, Gary was a freelance author and editor for 
National Underwriter under Debbie Miner.
Gary was devoted to family and community. As a young man, he participated in the 
Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. A member of All Saints Episcopal Church, 
Pleasant Ridge, throughout his time in Cincinnati, Gary sang in the choir 
(except during law school) and served as a Vestry member and warden, as editor 
of a newsletter, the Enabler, and in later years as Treasurer, learning 
QuickBooks. In retirement, he expanded his singing to the Cincinnati Choral 
Society, where he also brought his QuickBooks skills to bear as Treasurer and 
served as a board member. When Ruth was no longer up to driving, Gary took her 
(in extreme cases) to as many as three bridge games a week and two book club 
meetings a month.
A celebration of life will be held Saturday July 20, at 12 noon, at All Saints 
Episcopal Church, Grand Vista & Parkman Place, Cincinnati, the Rev. Meredith Day 
Hearn officiating; Marianne Bailey, on organ. The family is especially grateful 
to Mohamed and Susan Banoun, Gary’s neighbors across the street in Kenwood, who 
seemed to assist with whatever variety of needs vexed Gary in his last years of 
living independently. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to All Saints 
Episcopal Church.


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