Living by letters

The grocery store and the dance hall are gone. The number of cars that drive by in a day far outnumber the people living within the city limits. It's a familiar scene across the nation.

And yet, something remains. It has lasted through decades of closed stores and job layoffs. As long as it was there, a town still existed.

But now, a federal commission says small post offices should close.

On Thursday, a 208-page report was delivered to President George Bush, recommending the U.S. Postal Service close smaller offices to consolidate itself into a leaner, more efficient agency.

The Postal Service last reorganized in 1971 in attempt to cut its expenses. At the end of its most recent fiscal year, it owed the federal government, and ultimately taxpayers, $11 billion.

The report by the President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service is expected to be examined in congressional hearings this fall. Its major recommendations include making it easier to close unnecessary offices, simplifying the process for changing rates, cutting staff while making better use of automation and offering new services such as personalized stamps.

But postal workers in some of Southeast Missouri's smallest towns see their rural offices as the center of their communities. They want their post offices left alone.

Dutchtown postmaster Joy Koepp said her customers, especially senior citizens, want closer, more personal service -- not to drive several miles to a bigger office to stand in a longer line. Her window stays open six hours a day through the week and for a few hours Saturday mornings.

"This is the place to go, get in and out and have a little bit of conversation," Koepp said. "You can really help your customers better. I love the people here. You can't beat it."

She's been the town's post master for two years and shares a metal building with a gas station at the intersection of highways 25 and 74. Fifty-six of the office's 100 boxes are rented.

Whitewater mail carrier Weldon Eggimann has family roots in Dutchtown.

"Dutchtown was a booming town way back -- they had dance halls and stores," he said. "But now just about everything is gone. Everybody should have a post office."

Down the road a few miles in Gordonville, postmaster Sandy Yount greeted several customers by their first names before serving them Thursday afternoon. She's served them for seven years. Five years ago, the office moved from Route Z to a busier Highway 25 location and the revenue tripled, she said.

Postal work has been the only job she has ever known. Talk of cutbacks is frightening, she said.

"I've been at this for 20 years, and I've seen a lot of things and heard a lot of talk that little post offices should shut down," Yount said. "But a little office is a town's identity."

The Postal Service classifies the offices by levels, according to their size, revenue, boxes and customers. Both Koepp and Yount said they aren't worried about their offices closing. Many customers stop off there while driving to Cape Girardeau, Chaffee and Jackson. It's the post offices in lower income counties that are only open for two or four hours a day that they say would be among the first to close.

"I was at McGee for 10 years," Yount said of her postal job in the Bootheel region. "There would be days when I didn't sell a stamp. At Sturdivant, there were times that in a week I had sold not even $50 in stamps."

Internet auction sites like Ebay are helping her sales, she said. Customer Joyce Edwards of Gordonville prefers the small town post office for shipping those auction items.

"Since I do Ebay, closing this office would mean I'd have to go to Cape Girardeau, stand in a line and take a number. I wouldn't get that personal touch."

Other recommendations in the report were to establish a corporate-style board of directors to oversee the Postal Service; establish an independent panel to recommend closings and consolidations of mail sorting and distribution facilities; speed up collective bargaining and add pension and post-retirement health coverage to the items to be negotiated.

The Associated Press and the Charlottesville (N.C.) Observer contributed to this report.

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160