The headliner: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy officially stepped down from his role March 24.
“It is with great pride that I pass the baton to Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino until the governors name my permanent successor,” DeJoy said in a statement. “It has been one of the pleasures of my life and a crowning achievement of my career to have been associated with this cherished institution.”
“Louis is a fighter, and he has fought hard for the women and men of the Postal Service,” USPS Board of Governors Chair Amber McReynolds said in a statement. “I commend Postmaster General DeJoy for inspiring the Postal Service with strategic direction, a competitive spirit and a culture of achievement that comes from the successful implementation of large-scale change.”
In other news, Link covered the National Association of Letter Carriers’ recent hero awards luncheon.
Several of the honorees had already been featured in our “Heroes” column, including Tesfaye Dayasso, who received the group’s National Hero of the Year Award for helping a motorist escape a burning vehicle on a busy Minneapolis highway.
Other honorees included Brian Meyers Sr. of Johnstown, PA, who prevented a man from being stabbed by an assailant, and Rungphet Bodnar of Flint, MI, who used her dog spray to repel an attack on a little girl at a bus stop.
And last week’s “Heroes” column included a double dose of heroism: Kerry Honrath, a rural carrier in Pulaski, WI, stopped twice in the space of a week to assist motorists in medical distress.
In other tales of derring-do, Link spotlighted Gene Espy, now 98, who hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail in 1951, only the second person to have achieved that feat. Espy, a retired aeronautical engineer, worked for the Post Office Department in the late 1940s and attended the dedication ceremony for the new Appalachian Trail stamps in Dawsonville, GA.
Link also updated readers on the release of the Betty White stamp, including the dedication ceremony in Los Angeles and a USPS video on her life; the organization’s safe workplace policy; rules on property misuse; a new vice president for Central Area, Raj Sanghera; the resignation of Robert M. “Mike” Duncan from thee USPS Board of Governors; and an interest arbitration award between USPS and NALC.
Finally, we delved into the postal past with the second installment of our six-part series celebrating the organization’s 250th anniversary, and a “History” column exploring the postal system’s role in establishing Samuel Morse’s telegraph.
