The Cloverdale resident was among the 70 volunteers who minister to crime victims, people burned out of their homes and the police and firefighters who serve them.
More recently, he turned his focus to helping other chaplains cope with the emotional strain of assisting people dealing with personal tragedy and loss.
Before moving to Sonoma County in 1998, he taught administration of justice at Monterey Peninsula College for 27 years.
“He was a very compassionate person,” said Jane Snibbe, his wife of nearly 55 years. “Ministering to people in the greatest need was something that was important to him for a long time.”
Richard Howard Snibbe was born in Bronxville, N.Y., and lived as a youth in Connecticut, Maryland and Southern California.
After attending Pepperdine for a year he enlisted in the Army in 1950 and was trained as a military policeman. Instead of getting shipped off to the Korean War, he went to Austria where he worked as an undercover agent in the Criminal Investigation Division.
He attended the University of California, Berkeley when he got out and met his wife in an English class. They were married in 1957 and had two sons.
Snibbe was a police officer in Pacific Grove from 1958 to 1960 before returning to school at Fresno State to get undergraduate and graduate degrees in criminology. He also had a master’s in education from University of Redlands.
He taught at Monterey Peninsula College from about 1962 to 1989. He established the police academy, a cadet group and a community advisory committee. He also taught at the U.S. State Department’s international police academy in Washington, D.C., and at the University of Georgia, where he championed community policing efforts.
Upon retirement he wrote essays and poetry. Some pieces ran in the Sierra Club magazine and other publications.
He and his wife moved to Cloverdale’s Del Web subdivision in 1998 to escape the cold and fog of Monterey.
Snibbe was a member of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church.
He was commissioned as a law enforcement chaplain about five years ago, his wife said.
“We called him the chaplain to the chaplains,” said the program’s head, Warren Hays. “He would kind of care for the other chaplains, send them encouraging emails and talk to them after call-outs.”
Snibbe, who suffered a heart attack 21 years ago, collapsed Jan. 7 while buying food at a Cloverdale Subway sandwich shop.
He was taken to Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, where he died Wednesday.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by sons Carl of Red Bluff and Curt of Dana Point. He leaves behind three grandchildren.
A funeral service will be 2 p.m. on Jan. 28 at the Good Shepherd church in Cloverdale.