Tyrone Borough Council vice president David Snyder has said he is not seeking re-election and instead will turn his focus to his podcast and involvement in the Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce. Mirror photo by Matt Churella

TYRONE — David Snyder’s days as a Tyrone Borough Council member are reportedly numbered.

The council’s current vice president said he has no intentions to seek re-election and is planning to rejoin the Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce and focus on his “Hub of the Highways” podcast to help promote the northern Blair County region when his term expires in December.

Snyder was appointed to serve on the council in March 2017 and said he believes he’s reached his “fullest potential” as a council member in the years since then.

“I could keep doing what I’m doing, and there’s value in that, but I feel as though there is something other than being on council for me to do,” Snyder said.

If he were to continue with the council, Snyder said the “next step” for him would be to run for mayor.

After “talking about that openly” with current mayor Bill Latchford, who is seeking re-election, Snyder said he “has no interest in running against” Latchford.

Snyder said Latchford has decades of experience on council and the public would not have seen any change to the borough’s current operations if he would have run for mayor and won.

“He has my full support. I think he does a great job,” Snyder said of Latchford.

Latchford said Snyder was an “incredible addition” to the council when he was elected.

“He brought wonderful ideas and his love of technology was what council needed to think outside of the box for many challenges we faced,” Latchford said, adding Snyder’s sense of humor added levity to many council meetings.

“Although the work of council is quite serious, sometimes you have to sit back and have a little fun,” Latchford said.

In his final months on the council, Snyder said he plans to support safety inspections for commercial, and potentially residential, properties — a matter he voted against previously because, in his opinion, the borough “couldn’t come up with a way that was sustainable to do it.”

However, after speaking with councilwoman Sarah Dane Hunter, Snyder said he believes there are “certain things on the books already” to enforce the inspections.

“That’s not my proposal, but that’s something I would like to see if we can make it work,” Snyder said.

“What I would like to propose is the reinstitution of the Main Street Management program in Tyrone,” he said, adding the program was successful in the past, but has been defunct in the borough since the 1990s.

Through the program, Snyder said the borough could acquire “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in grant funds to revitalize facades and the downtown historic district, making Tyrone more appealing to prospective business owners.

With the funding, the borough could also hire a full-time employee to focus on the economy in downtown Tyrone, he said.

Although confident he would win re-election as a councilman, Snyder said he feels it’s “best served” if he doesn’t run so that he can have “unbiased” conversations with other council members on his podcast.

“If I really wanted to pursue this, then I would need to remain neutral,” Snyder said.

The podcast itself “is not something I had on my bingo card,” Snyder said. “This isn’t something I had in my mind to do.”

Snyder said he became annoyed after hearing from several people “that there’s nothing here to do” in Tyrone.

To prove a point, he made a list of over 300 businesses and organizations in the borough and started to promote them on his Facebook page in October 2024. He made a daily “Thankful Tyrone” post to promote a new business each day.

The posts were only supposed to last until Thanksgiving. But after receiving many messages from community members asking him to keep it going, Snyder said he decided to create a poll asking the public whether the posts should continue through the end of the year.

Overwhelmingly, “no one said no,” according to Snyder.

The posts led to Snyder recording “quick highlights,” which later “morphed” into an idea for the podcast, he said.

Depending on schedule conflicts, Snyder said he tries to record at least one podcast episode each week, noting episodes are available on Facebook, YouTube and Spotify.

Snyder said he’s passionate about his podcast because he wants residents to think positively of Tyrone. The long-term goal of the project is to provide a “catalog of proof that northern Blair County is a worthwhile area to live in,” he said.

“It’s a family environment and it promotes the community. It’s just a fun project,” Snyder said of his podcast.

This past Friday, Snyder recorded an episode of “Hub of the Highways” with Bake Shop Bakes owner Andy Hoover, who promoted his business’ annual Pi Day fundraiser.

On Friday, March 14, Bake Shop Bakes will donate $1 for every pie sold to be split among three families who each recently lost a child to drug addiction and overdose, Hoover said, adding they’ve sold anywhere from 300 to 600 pies in previous years for the annual celebration of the mathematical constant pi. Pi Day is observed on March 14 because the first three figures of pi are 3.14.

Many small businesses in the Tyrone community will make donations to the fundraiser, and throughout the week, Bake Shop Bakes is also donating all of the tips the business receives to the grieving families, Hoover said.

“The ultimate goal is to help these families as much as we can,” he said, adding Tyrone is “probably one of the most supportive communities I’ve ever seen.”

Hoover said it was “an honor” to be a guest on Snyder’s podcast since he has been a regular customer at Bake Shop Bakes since the store opened.

“He’s always in the store and everywhere in Tyrone. He’s super supportive of small businesses,” Hoover said of Snyder.

Snyder said it’s the community’s support in times of need and a group of “very dedicated, very underappreciated people” who put on events in the town who make Tyrone a great place to live.

“When you see all of these people doing this, there has to be something of value here, even if you don’t see it. There really is something special about the people that I think feeds into the podcast as well,” he said.

At the end of his tenure on council, Snyder said he hopes to join some of the chamber’s subcommittees to be more involved with events, which would require approval from the chamber’s board of directors.

However, Snyder is currently involved with the chamber by providing free business commercials through “Hub of the Highways.” Any new business owners or existing chamber members who renew their chamber memberships are entitled to a free business commercial, Snyder said.

So far, Reader Electric is the only business in town that has taken Snyder up on the promotional offer, he said.

Rose Black, the chamber’s executive director, said several chamber members have expressed interest in the commercials, noting Snyder reaches out to new members and existing members should contact Snyder directly if they’re interested in the benefit.

“I think people are waiting to know when it’s their turn,” Black said, adding Snyder’s podcast has been “very well received” by Tyrone’s business community.

“He definitely has an interest in making the community better and helping people,” Black said of Snyder. “It’s great to see someone like that in town.”

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.

The Snyder file

Name: David Snyder

Age: 42

Education: Tyrone Area High School, Class of 2001; Penn State Altoona, bachelor’s degree in English liberal arts, Class of 2007

Family: Wife, Bailey; children: Grayson, 6; Emma, 4; Joanna, 2

Career: At 15, he worked as a janitor cleaning the Tyrone Area School District’s elementary schools for a few summers before starting work at Panera Bread in 2003. He was promoted into a shift management role, which put him through college. After that, he moved to Minneapolis for three years and started his own business. He’s been a business owner ever since. He first started a search engine optimization business, 2008-10; moved to northern Virginia and launched a cleaning company, 2010-13; moved back to Tyrone and started the Tyrone Cleaning Co., 2013-22; started Ingenuity Media, Tyrone, 2022-present.

Organizations: Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce board, 2017-19; Tyrone Borough Council, 2017-2025; Tyrone Area Historical Society board, 2017-present; Blair County Republican Committee vice chairman, 2018-22

Hobbies: Cooking and coming up with fun activities to do with his kids