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Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Richards retiring after 30 years with post office
A 30 year career with the United States Postal Service will be coming to an end when David RICHARDS retires as Mount Ayr
postmaster Friday, Sept. 28. He was presented with a 30-year service pin and retirement certificate by JaNan O'BRIEN, his
regional manager, in a ceremony at the post office Tuesday morning. A new postmaster will be starting October 1, but the
announcement of who that will be has not yet been made. RICHARDS has spent almost all of his postal career in the Mount
Ayr post office. He worked in Kellerton for three months when he began work as a clerk-carrier, but has spent the rest
of his years at the Mount Ayr post office. He has served as Mount Ayr's postmaster for the past 10 years. There have been
many changes in the postal service over the years. When he first started, daily trucks of mail arrived from Omaha, Saint
Joseph and Creston, meaning that there was one-day service from points further away than today. Automation has
changed the way work is done in the local post offices as well. From casing the mail by hand at the local post office,
automation has made it so that the carriers receive letters from regional sorting centers lined up in route order
and ready to be delivered. Another new addition has been the retail products that the post office has added to its mix.
Priority flat rate shipping, where anything that will fit in a priority flat rate box can be shipped for a certain price,
has become very popular as well. While the internet has cut down on the amount of first class mail sent, it has
increased some of the shipping done locally, he said. The number of people selling items over e-Bay and then
shipping the items to the buyers across the world has increased. He noted that one e-Bay seller recently came
in with 24 packages to send on a Monday after a particularly good weekend of selling over the internet. What
RICHARDS will miss the most in retirement is the contact he has had with people everyday. "Here at the post
office I see some people five days a week and I'll miss being able to see the friends I've made over the years on
such a frequent basis," he said.
Photograph courtesy of Mount Ayr Record-News
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, October of 2012
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