We'll always remember Snapp

Michael Snapp died a year ago at age 19. His 21st birthday, had he lived, would have been Tuesday, Sept. 28 but his echoes are still felt throughout campus. His number has been retired, and the furor over his death quieted. Even so, Snapp’s spirit isn’t gone from Wesleyan.

Snapp, a management major and fixture on the baseball team, died on Sept. 25, 2003, shot as he opened the door to his apartment. A year later, no one knows why. No one has been arrested or charged. The police have no suspects. He is remembered by his classmates, by the students and teachers who knew him and who wonder why he died.

The crime has no known motive, and a review of the facts offers little. Nothing was taken, nothing disturbed. Snapp opened the door, was shot and instantly killed. The senseless nature of the tragedy was perhaps the hardest part for Wesleyan’s tight-knit community to deal with.

He leaves his mark on the crime brochure in the security office, where for 2003 Wesleyan has a homicide, the first in it’s history. He leaves his mark on his friends, coaches, and teammates, who remember the young man as a good player and a good person. Snapp, not yet 20, was remembered as always smiling, as being a great player. His hat had inscribed on it “Play every game like it’s your last.” His coach, Nick Boothe, spoke after the service last year, saying that “Snapp was a great kid, a wonderful person, a good friend and a wonderful teammate.”

The college, through the Office of College Advancement, has instituted the Michael R. Snapp Memorial Scholarship. The fund, whose target is $50,000, has already reached $24,000, and all are welcome to donate to it. After it reaches at least that amount, the scholarship is self-sustaining.

The fund is for helping other students get to Wesleyan, according to the press release sent out by Snapp’s aunt, Connie DeBord. She says the family is still dealing with the tragedy. So is the campus.

Donations to the Michael R. Snapp Memorial Scholarship can be made by calling the Office of College Advancement at 455-3242.