CENTER TWP — Roger Snodgrass, Center Township Elementary School principal, has three simple rules for being an effective school administrator: Be a good listener, know your students and always find something positive to say, no matter how negative a situation may be.

Snodgrass, 55, retires this month, ending a 21-year tenure at Center Township and 26 years in the Butler School District. But the Butler native certainly doesn't have plans to keep still.

He's one of six owners of the Butler Bluesox baseball team, he loves sports, traveling, jigsaw puzzles and hopes to someday own a restaurant.

As a young man, he didn't have big aspirations, or educational ones, right away.

“Whenever I finished high school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was working for a grocery store. It was called Thorofare Markets at the time,” Snodgrass said, who graduated from Butler High School in 1977. “I was your typical stock boy, this and that, probably working 40 hours a week at that time. And I thought to myself, I probably want to figure out what I want to do, you know?

“And I always kind of had an interest in working with kids. And I said to myself, I want to be a guidance counselor. That's what I wanted to do.”

He describes having a blue-collar upbringing, the second of five children. College wasn't discussed much growing up.

He took a year and a half off school between high school and college before enrolling at Butler County Community College, and transferred to Indiana (Pa.) University to study elementary education.

“I was just trying to figure it out, didn't want to waste money, didn't want to go to school for something I didn't really want to do,” Snodgrass said.

After college, he lived in Texas with his wife, Ann, who he had met at the grocery store where he worked. They've been married for 32 years. He moved to the Houston area because teaching jobs were scarce in Pennsylvania at the time.

But during those seven years living away from Butler, the young couple frequently became homesick. His father-in-law in the late 1980s told Snodgrass about several principal openings in the school district. He had made the transition from teacher to assistant principal while in Texas.

During a visit home, he filed an application at the Butler district office. The next day, then Superintendent Robert Paserba called him to come in for an interview that day, but he was on a golf outing in Ohio with seven friends.

In an age before cell phones, his wife left a message with the golf course for him to call back. When he did reach Paserba, they were able to make arrangements for the next day. That year he was hired as principal at Broad Street and Emily Brittain elementary schools.

Since 1994, he's been principal at Center Township. And he's made an impact on teachers and students alike, saying he works far beyond the confines of a typical school day.

On Heritage Day, an annual event where fourth graders learn about their ancestry that was held last week, Snodgrass was the first one to arrive for the day, along with the custodian, to set things up.

“He's hands on. He was here at 7:45 a.m. in a suit and tie putting the risers together, getting the chairs lined up and the tables,” said Saundra Baxter, a fourth-grade teacher at the school. “He leads by example.”

Heritage Day and grandparents day are among his favorite annual school events. He's also attended baseball games, track meets and volleyball tournaments to support Center Township students. Students value him doing that.

“I like that he goes to all of our activities and cheers us on,” said Brianna Schnitzer, a sixth-grade student.

Being present and professional are traits he's prioritized over the years.

“You could sit all day in your office and probably be productive and have enough to do, but when you do that, you lose contact with the kids and you lose contact with the teachers,” Snodgrass said.

“I have always felt: Be visible. You keep things from happening that are generally bad just by walking around.

“And that's my style, is walking around, interacting with kids, interacting with teachers. I don't harp on teachers. I don't go into their rooms, and just knit-pick and watch over everything. I go in, in a sense, with just working together, as far as, how can we do things better?”

Snodgrass also is someone most sixth graders at the school have known for more than half of their lives, since kindergarten.

“He has a good sense of humor. He always lightens the mood,” said Sarah Fiorina, another sixth grader. “If something happens, he supports you. You gain his trust. You can go to him.”

He also has great balance between responsibilities of his job, said Steve Arn, a second-grade teacher.

“The thing I really like about Roger that I respect a lot is that he's got to be everything to everybody. And I'm sure that's the same for all principals, but in my opinion, he really did a remarkable job of that. He's a really good administrator and he doesn't micromanage,” Arn said.

He added: “I've seen him just diffuse situations that were just — I wouldn't have known where to begin. That were just incredibly difficult, highly emotionally charged situations with parents that needed a really deft touch. To be able to do that, and then I've seen him have to be really firm at times, but not overly strict. So he's got a lot of different facets to him.”

While Snodgrass has loved his job, he said he's looking forward to an active retirement. After his father, a construction worker, died from a heart attack when he was 52, he wanted to ensure a retirement of his own. A retirement his father never got.

“I always regretted him never having a day of retirement,” Snodgrass said.

He promised himself not to work a day more than he had to before retiring, to honor his father and not meet the same fate. He learned of an early retirement incentive he qualified for last year. His retirement is unrelated to the school consolidation plans taking effect this year.

“There's a lot of discussion about country kids and city kids and suburban kids. Kids are kids,” he said.

Snodgrass also has two grown sons who attended Center Township and Butler High School: Austin, 24, and Nate, 21.