Westminster alums to honor Schneider

Anne Schneider
Anne Schneider

Anne Schneider, of Jefferson City, is the newest winner of Westminster College's Jack Marshall Alumni Loyalty Award.

She will be honored Saturday during the Fulton college's alumni weekend.

"I was extremely flattered" to be chosen, she said Thursday.

Schneider graduated from Westminster in 1985; she attended Hazelwood-East High School in St. Louis County.

"I was looking for a smaller college experience having gone to a larger, suburban high school," she said of her decision to attend the Fulton school, "and was attracted to Westminster and its traditions and rigorous academic program."

She also was in the third Westminster class to include women, after more than a century of being an all-male college.

"We were still in the minority," she recalled. "It actually was part of what attracted me, because of the traditions that had already been established."

Looking back, she said, Westminster was a good choice.

"It provided the things that I wanted - in spades," she said. "I enjoyed small classes, with every professor knowing my name.

"I enjoyed the ability to participate in a wide range of college activities - things that I had not gotten to do in high school."

One of those activities was joining the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority which, she said Thursday, "turned out to be very important. It gave me sort of an instant group of friends to hang around with. I also really appreciated the ideals that the sorority - all the sororities - stand for.

"Those principles were things that really resonated with me."

As an adult, she served as an adviser for the sorority and worked with its facility corporation.

And that work led to Schneider's being "asked if I would be interested in serving on the Alumni Council," she noted, "and from there, I got involved and eventually was elected as its president.

"After serving in that capacity for two years, I was then invited to serve on the Board of Trustees."

Schneider was a trustee for nine years and now is a Trustee Emeritus.

She also is a member of the President's Club and Westminster's True Blue Society.

Schneider majored in political science at Westminster and decided during her senior year to pursue a law degree, which she earned in 1988 from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"I was always attracted to the practice of law and the legal system in general," she said.

From 1988 until she retired in 2016, Schneider worked as an assistant attorney general in the Consumer Protection Division and also served as an antitrust counsel from 2002-16.

"When I first interviewed with the attorney general - who, back then, was Bill Webster, and with the other chief counsels who were doing employment interviews - I expressed an interest in consumer protection.

"And I went straight there."

Schneider's work involved investigating and prosecuting violations of Missouri's Merchandising Practices Act and state and federal antitrust laws in both civil and criminal prosecutions, according to Westminster's news release announcing her honor.

She handled a variety of other matters such as security fraud prosecution, professional licensing cases and the defense of the state in various legal challenges.

Schneider held several positions on the National Association of Attorneys' General Antitrust Task Force, including chairing its Joint Enforcement Committee, and she worked on numerous educational initiatives, including presentations on Missouri's Human Trafficking Law to public groups and law enforcement.

The Missouri attorney general's office won a national award in 1995 for a senior citizen education initiative Schneider designed and led.

"I loved having a career in public service," she said.

She's been married to Ray Schneider since 1993, and their son, Ray Schneider Jr., graduated last December from MU with a degree in bioengineering.

Schneider is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, currently serving on the Session - the governing board - at Jefferson City's First Presbyterian Church.

She is the moderator of the congregation's Presbyterian Women as well as for the Presbyterian Women of Missouri Union Presbytery.

Schneider also is a member of Capital Region Medical Center's Board of Governors, and she is a volunteer for the Historic City of Jefferson group.

And she continues to be active in Westminster activities.

"I would like people to know what a special place Westminster College is," Schneider said. "It is a real jewel among colleges in the country and, especially, right here in the Midwest."