Kempner postmaster set to retire after lengthy career of service
"I wish some of the people who work at big post offices could have what we have. Kempner is just an awesome little town. " -- Penne Reagey Kempner postmaster
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

PHOTO BY DAVID LOWE Penne Reagey, left, sorts mail into carriers' route boxes with associate Freida Holland's help. Ms. Reagey will retire as Kempner postmaster on April 4, after 15 years in the position and 26 years total for the U.S. Postal Service.

When she retires as postmaster at the Kempner Post Office, Penne Reagey will miss sorting the mail. She will miss the town she has known for 15 years.

Most of all, she will miss the people.

When Ms. Reagey completes her 26-year career with the United States Postal Service April 4, she plans to return home to Harker Heights. While retirement plans will take her away from Kempner, she won't forget the attachment she has forged to the town and its residents.

"I will miss the people here and the people of Kempner," Ms. Reagey said. "It's a very special place."

A "working" postmaster, Ms. Reagey, unlike postmasters at larger offices, handles mail along with filing reports, managing employees, overseeing the office's financial operations, and leading training and security. She has appreciated the opportunity to interact with customers daily, she said.

"That's the part I love," said Ms. Reagey. "I love working the mail. I love working the window."

The Kempner Post Office delivers to about 4,000 people in Lampasas, Coryell, Burnet and Bell counties, and Ms. Reagey has developed friendships with many customers. She loves knowing patrons by name and seeing them at the grocery store.

"I wish some of the people who work at big post offices could have what we have," the postmaster said. "Kempner's just an awesome little town."

Ms. Reagey has enjoyed the town's diversity, illustrated by the Kempner area's large military population and many first-generation Americans, she said. She and her clerks try particularly to thank military customers for their service as soldiers.

Those personal connections with community members have helped her develop a love for her job.

"It's almost like you get to participate in their lives," she said. "You get to send the pictures of the first baby, and you get to send the wedding pictures."

Computer technology allows mail to reach the post office faster than in decades past, Ms. Reagey said. She doubts e-mail ever will replace mail delivered through the postal service, though.

"There's nothing like getting a letter in the mail," she said.

Computers can help in the delivery process, she added, but occasionally the post office receives a letter intended for a recipient only small-town employees would know how to find.

"What computers don't know is how to deliver a letter addressed to 'Aunt Boo,'" said Ms. Reagey.

The postmaster has seen plenty of exotic deliveries throughout her career. Customers have delivered chickens, bees and other live animals. One patron sent a coconut with the top shaved off and an address carved in the fruit's white flesh. The sender had strung a stamped card to the coconut because the stamp wouldn't stick to the fruit.

"Of course, we're always amazed by the things that come through the mail," Ms. Reagey said.

She and her co-workers pride themselves in upholding "the sanctity of the mail."

"The people here really care about their customers," she said. "It's more than just a job. It's a responsibility."

The postmaster credits clerks Freida Holland and Marcus Stinson and her rural carriers with much of the Kempner office's success. She trusts their integrity, and the group's time together has forged not just strong working relationships but also friendships.

"I have wonderful employees," Ms. Reagey said. "There's not a better post office in the United States."

Since leaving her postal position in western Massachusetts in 1993 to care for her mother, Ms. Reagey has seen Kempner become an incorporated city and the office's delivery population double. The post office moved into its current building in 2000 after employees ran out of work space at the original location, now Kempner City Hall.

Vanita Craft worked as the clerk when Ms. Reagey took the postmaster position. The friendship that developed between the two helped Ms. Reagey immensely, she said, during her transition back to Texas.

"She just helped me so much," said the postal official. "I couldn't have survived without her. She's a wonderful woman."

Ms. Reagey said she also has benefitted from cooperation with county officials, Lampasas Post Office employees and Copperas Cove postmaster Rosa Gonzales, a Kempner resident.

"It's great to know the people who work alongside you and know they will support you," Ms. Reagey said.

Along with volunteering at her church and at the Harker Heights Public Library, Ms. Reagey will focus on family time once she retires. The postmaster plans to travel to Massachusetts to spend the summer with her only granddaughter, who will graduate from high school this spring.

At times, Ms. Reagey has felt "married" to her job. Her work often cuts family time short, as when the postmaster spends Christmas delivering express mail. At the same time, though, her work has given Ms. Reagey a sense of connection with her family's history.

Her paternal grandfather received an appointment from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the postmaster position in Woodson, which Ms. Reagey's grandmother filled when her husband died. Her maternal grandfather served as a rural carrier.

The Kempner postmaster remembers her grandfather letting her sit on mail sacks and attach special delivery stamps when she was a child.

After teaching school, Ms. Reagey joined the postal service in 1982, beginning as a city mail carrier. A dog bit her the first day she traveled her route.

"I didn't last long," Ms. Reagey said.

As she assumed greater responsibilities in handling mail, Ms. Reagey grew more proud of the postal service's work. Working for America's second-largest government employer -- behind only the military -- the postmaster believes she and other postal employees help manage a daunting load of mail while also providing friendly service.

"I really believe in the postal service," Ms. Reagey said. "We have so many people who truly want to serve other people."

She has seen the postal service change from a department of the national government to a quasigovernmental corporation still governed by federal rules and prices. Unlike in her grandfathers' era, would-be postmasters now must apply and compete for the job.

While not holding strong political views, Ms. Reagey said she fears calls for total privatization of the postal service.

The postmaster approaches retirement not with fear, though, but with pride in the work she has accomplished and the friendships she has built.

"I haven't regretted a minute of it," Ms. Reagey said. "I truly have loved it."