Dr. Theodore Edward (Ted) Snazelle went to his heavenly home on April 8th, 2024. Dr. Snazelle was born on August 30, 1941 to Albert Brooks and Ruth Lynn Snazelle. He grew up in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and graduated from Bowling Green High School. He attended Western Kentucky University where he met and married his wife of 63 years Beatrice (Bea) Ashlock Snazelle, and later graduated from Belmont University in Nashville. The young couple moved to Lafeyette, Indiana, and Dr Snazelle finished a PH. D in Plant Pathology at Purdue University. He worked in the agriculture business for a time, but quickly found his true passion and calling in life…teaching!
He began his career as a college professor teaching at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois in 1970. From there he then was on faculty at the University of Tennessee in Nashville.
In 1980 he started his dream job, when he was hired as a biology professor at Mississippi College in Clinton, MS. Throughout his nearly 40-year career at MC he not only taught Biology, Microbiology, and Immunology, but he was also a visionary for higher education in the sciences and helped begin the now well-known Master of Medical Sciences program at MC.
He was a much-loved professor at MC, and was completely devoted to his students. He touched countless lives, and encouraged and taught many of the doctors, dentists and other health professionals practicing in the State of Mississippi and beyond. Not only was he a legendary teacher at MC, but he was also a devoted sports fan of the Choctaws. He rarely missed at home football or basketball game, and in his younger years was well known for his comical shouting at the referees at basketball games whenever he felt that the Choctaws had received at “bad call.”
In addition to teaching, Dr. Snazelle was and avid gardener, and became well known for his interests and cultivation of daffodils. He became an expert in that area of horticulture, and founded the Central Mississippi Daffodil Society. Because of his keen knowledge of plants and his unmatched teaching skills, he was often invited to various places all over the globe to share his knowledge of all things daffodil.
Always the intellectual, but always so personal, Dr. Snazelle never met a stranger, and could carry on a conversation with anyone. Despite his busy career, he was a devoted husband and father which led into his other hobby, photography. He spent countless hours photographing sports, cheerleading, and dance activities first of his son and daughter, then of his 5 grandchildren.
Dr. Snazelle is preceded in death by his parents, Albert Brooks and Ruth Lynn Snazelle, his brother Bryan Snazelle, and his granddaughter Bailey Purkey. He is survived by his wife Bea Snazelle, his son Blaine (Terri) Snazelle, his daughter Gretchen Purkey (Randy), and 4 grandchildren, Taylor Smith, John Snazelle, Jake Purkey, and Mary Caroline Purkey, his great granddaughter Annie Snazelle and a sister, Sally Grill (Jim).
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials can be made to the Small Cell Ovarian Cancer Foundation www.smallcellovarian.org or to the Biology department at Mississippi College www.go.mc.edu .
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