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Born on July 9, 1947 as the 7th child of legendary La Crosse welding supply impresario and kingmaker Elmer Snitker, Norman Snitker grew up amid the stately opulence afforded by his father’s reported $15,000 fortune, bass boat, and palatial storage shed. By all accounts a precocious drinker, he took early advantage of his birthright and fully stocked basement liquor cabinet, earning the first of his 138 lifetime DUIs at age 11.
Although he grew up in privilege, Snitker insiders say that even at a young age Norm showed a deep empathy for those who were less fortunate.
“Norm would look at the other kids at school, and say, ‘why don’t they have access to the same fake IDs as me? Why must they remain sober?'” said classmate Glenn Hunsaker. “It became a crusade for him, and he became an activist. Every Friday night you’d see him at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, making sure that every kid in La Crosse got the Pabst and Old Style that they so desperately needed.”
Despite those early accomplishments, young Norm Snitker was often overshadowed by his glamorous and dashing older brothers, Stu, Larry and Wayne, whose tragic deaths transfixed southwest Wisconsin. He was only seven when eldest brother Stu was felled by a salmonella-infected bratwurst. By the time he was was an 18-year old GED student, eldest surviving brother Larry M. Snitker had already taken the helm of the family’s Tri-County Welding Supply dynasty. The brief golden age of Weldalot came to a tragic end at the 1967 ‘Ice Bowl’ game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, when a celebrating LMS was slain by a goalpost icicle. He was succeeded by Wayne, whose life abruptly ended in 1981 after his mullet became ensnared in the rollers of a QuikTrip weenie heater.
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