After 36 years of public service — 12 on the Buckingham County School Board and 24 on the county’s board of supervisors — Ivan “Monroe” Snoddy has announced his decision to retire.

In discussing his decision with The Herald, the 81-year-old barber quoted Thomas Jefferson, noting that newer people with newer ideas were needed to “plow new ground.”

“You know, you get burnt out. …” Snoddy said, while sitting in his basement office.

Snoddy’s political career began over 40 years ago in 1971 when he was appointed to the school board to represent the Marshall District, today’s election District One. After a dozen years on the school division’s

governing board, he decided to run for supervisor, winning his first election in 1983. Snoddy would serve as chairman of the board for a combined five years.

Serving the public wasn’t a new concept to Snoddy before he joined the school board. Twenty years before he attended his first school board meeting, he studied at the Richmond Barber College, learning to be a barber — a long and successful career that not only taught him how to cut hair, but to listen to and understand people’s problems, ideas and misfortunes.

After barber school, Snoddy would be asked to cut hair at a business on U.S. Route 15, north of Arvonia.

Employees from the three slate quarries, Solite, Dutch Gap and other large employers came to Snoddy’s chair for haircuts. Back then, he’d average 100 heads a week, costing about 35 cents per haircut.

“After the Beatles came to America, everybody started growing long hair, you know. That kind of put a lot of barbers out of business,” he said, acknowledging that his own business suffered.

In 1971, as Snoddy built his home, he decided to put a barbershop in the basement where he could be in his business by simply descending down a flight of stairs.

“After they got over the Beatles stage, things got better. …,” the grey-haired man said.

He said what he finds most interesting about being a barber is meeting so many different kinds of people. “I might have somebody from the state police in now, and the next customer might be a woodcutter. Or even a doctor.”

Snoddy says he’s learned a great deal from the many men who’ve rested in his chair, adding that it takes a good listener to be a good barber. “Privately, I suspect people have told me more about their wives or their children [than anyone else],” he said.

Snoddy says that he’s had people to come in and wrap their arms around him after losing a young child, to people in bad health wanting to pray with him.

“You know, you have young boys that [are] going through divorces, or they’re having a hard time at home … Sometimes, they’ll want to talk to you about that kind of thing,” he said.

While sitting in class at the Marshall District High School, not too far from his house, he says he began to take an interest in politics. “I wanted to serve the county. I wanted to try to make a difference,” he said.

Snoddy calls the establishment of a textbook rental program for students, starting a reading program, construction of the vocational center, building Buckingham Primary and initiation of programming for special-needs children some of his proudest accomplishments during his dozen years on the school board.

“I was running as a Democrat at that time, and then, after a couple Democrats, I decided to go independent, run independent,” he said of his 1983 successful win as one of the two supervisors who then represented the Marshall District.

Eight years later, he decided not to seek reelection. “You had a board at the time … [where] everybody had their own agenda. And you’d get up two steps and you’d fall back three. …”

In 1995, Snoddy decided to run again, because, “people come and wanted me to run.”

Snoddy’s second stint would end in 2003, when he was defeated by challenger R.C. “Bobby” Jones .

He would later win the seat back in 2007, which brings him to his present tour of service.

Some of the feathers in Snoddy’s political hat, which he notes as accomplishments, include the installation of the football field and bleachers at the high school, the renovation of the high school, and construction of the new middle school, Carter G. Woodson Educational Complex, new water treatment plant and new County administration complex, the location of the Dominion Bear Garden Power Plant in New Canton and the replacement of the John H. Cocke Memorial Bridge over the James River.

Two of the biggest challenges facing Buckingham right now, says Snoddy, are the expansion of sewer and water to attract development and building a new public library.

He calls the railroad and water in the James and Slate Rivers two of the county’s biggest advantages. “If the county’s going to ever move [forward], they’re going to have to have industry…” he said.