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...