By PAT NEWMAN
pnewman@TheCitizenNews.com

When participants assemble Saturday for the third annual March for Jesus, T.W. Snider of neighboring Clayton County and his wife, Janice, will be out in front.

At 91, Snider remains an active minister preaching at area Baptist churches and teaching Sunday School classes. His wife calls him a miracle man. “He's never had a tooth pulled, and has never had a headache,” Janice reported. He keeps his brain sharp by writing free-lance articles for various evangelical publications in the U.S. and Canada.

Janice, who is a polio survivor, will roll along the parade route in her motorized scooter.

Snider took the roundabout way to the ministry, after returning to grade school at age 22. “My history is unusual,” he explained. “I grew up in Mitchell County and was converted there, at the Mitchell Baptist Church. I'll be attending homecoming there soon.”

Around Christmas in 1931, Snider said he decided to go to school and started at the sixth grade level. Conjugating Latin verbs at the chalk board proved difficult for “Thero,” as he was known, and he was demoted to third grade. He progressed rapidly, and after three years, made it to Mrs. Gibson's 10th grade. “I walked into that school and I felt I was at Oxford... a Rhodes scholar,” he said proudly.

After moving to Augusta, Snider said he was presented with more opportunities. He joined a church and the pastor told him he was “called to preach.” “This church will help you,” Snider said the pastor recalls telling him. So he packed his bags for New Orleans and started preaching at the First Baptist Church in Kenner. “I was in high cotton,” Snider joked. “Eventually I went to Mercer and took a few course and went on to serve in a number of churches in Columbus, Jacksonville, Fla. and Aiken, S.C. before retiring.”

Snider keeps abreast of pastoral affairs in Fayette County by attending the weekly prayer breakfasts on Tuesdays with surrounding ministers. At home, he is a self-proclaimed “Mr. Fix-it” and an avid gardener.

Reflecting on the current surge in spirituality, Snider said he has also noticed a growth in mission work. “My home church is sending missionaries to the Ukraine, but the missionaries seem to be working all over. A number are getting ready to go to China and teach English. They (Chinese) will let them witness one on one, but they must be very careful.”

Snider said he was a foreign missionary in Clayton County during the time he taught a Sunday School class for immigrant Laotions at Emmanuel Church.

Saturday's March for Jesus will begin at 10 a.m. Participants should assemble in the Fayette County High School parking lot at 9 a.m.