Friday, March 20, 2026
Healthy eating challenge begins April 6
This six-week program will promote adding fruits and vegetables to your diet
The USPS Benefits and Wellness team is encouraging employees to participate in Colorful Choices, a six-week healthy eating challenge for spring.
The program aims to help participants prioritize including fruits and vegetables in their diets and to help them build sustainable nutritional habits to support overall well-being.
Participants will have access to interactive message boards, recipes and daily health tips. They can also create teams of up to five members. Family members age 13 and older can also take part in the challenge.
Registration is required, and participants can register on the Colorful Choices website. Registration opens Monday, March 23.
The challenge runs from Monday, April 6, to Sunday, May 17.
Participation is voluntary. Nonexempt employees must participate off the clock or during authorized breaks.
For more information, email the USPS Benefits and Wellness team.
People
He had tender postal roots
Robert Duvall worked as a clerk in Manhattan before his big break
Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall, who died Feb. 15 at the age of 95, also had a brief postal career in New York City.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked shifts as a clerk at a Post Office in Manhattan’s Broadway district between taking acting classes and auditioning. His roommate at the time was Dustin Hoffman, and they palled around with fellow actors, the late Gene Hackman and James Caan.
Duvall’s breakout role came in the 1962 movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” as the character Arthur “Boo” Radley. During his acting career, he was nominated seven times for an Oscar and won best actor in 1984 for “Tender Mercies.”
A list of famous former employees is available on the postal history page on usps.com. Employees who know about other famous postal workers can email their tips to the USPS historian’s office.
Postal blue genes
Clifton, AZ, Postmaster Joanna Simmons is fascinated with the postal blue stripe running through her husband’s family tree.
Tyler Simmons is the postmaster of Pima, AZ, and “his dad was the postmaster there before him, and his uncle was a postmaster as well,” she said.
Tyler’s brother, Chad Simmons, is a customer services supervisor in Safford, AZ; his sister, Vicki Rolfson, is a clerk in Central, AZ; and Tyler and Joanna’s children both once worked for USPS, too.
But she is most impressed by a fact Tyler’s uncle discovered while doing genealogical research online: The family is linked to the first postmaster general, Benjamin Franklin. Tyler is Franklin’s first cousin 10 times removed, according to his uncle’s research.
“We even took a trip to Philadelphia and visited his Post Office,” Joanna said. “It was an awesome experience.”
The past is the present
Pamela Reese, a rural carrier in Huntsburg, OH, also has an early American ancestor who worked for the Post Office.
Phillip Beach delivered mail in New York between 1799 and 1800, according to an article her grandmother shared when she started with USPS. “Now that I’ve been here 19 years, it means more to me,” she said.
Reese points out an unusual present-day connection with Beach’s work: “I have about 200 Amish customers,” she said. “He delivered on horse and buggy, and now I deliver to people on horse and buggy.”
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News Quiz
Mailing program makes the world an open book
How much do you know about Free Matter for the Blind?
“News Quiz” is a weekly feature that lets you test your knowledge of recent Link stories. The correct answers appear at the end.
1. When speaking of the program that allows blind people to receive reading matter free through the mail, National Library Service Director James Broughton said which of the following?
a) “Helping those in need is man’s highest calling.”
b) “I can think of no better use of taxpayer dollars.”
c) “The Postal Service is a link between the seen and the unseen.”
d) “This program shows federal agency cooperation at its very best.”
2. What is the minimum number of employees in a workgroup needed to complete the Postal Pulse survey for that group’s results to be reported?
a) 5
b) 10
c) 15
d) 20
3. What tipped off USPS Office of Inspector General special agents that a pharmacy in Southeast Texas was breaking the law?
a) A pharmacy employee bragged about his illegal exploits on his social media page.
b) Packages of prescribed drugs constantly included incorrect customer addresses.
c) Pharmacy employees were caught stealing drugs prescribed for customers.
d) The pharmacy was filing a large number of workers’ compensation reimbursement claims.
4. True or false: Young sunflowers follow the sun’s trajectory from east to west throughout the day.
a) True
b) False
5. Why did Pella, IA, Retail Associate Landen Pace call the police about a 2-year-old child?
a) A customer asked him to help.
b) He saw blood on the child’s elbow.
c) Several large dogs surrounded the child.
d) The child was standing in the street with no adult supervision.
Answers: 1) c. 2) a. 3) d. 4) a. 5) d.
Postal Bulletin takes a look at the annual employee survey
Postal Bulletin’s latest edition, published March 19, explains the Postal Pulse employee survey and how the organization uses the information it provides.
Updates to the organization’s policies, procedures and forms are also included.
Employees can go to usps.com to read and download the latest Postal Bulletin, along with past issues.
View past printouts
Printout details
What's included
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Healthy eating challenge begins April 6
This six-week program will promote adding fruits and vegetables to your diet
-
People
He had tender postal roots
Robert Duvall worked as a clerk in Manhattan before his big break
-
News Quiz
Mailing program makes the world an open book
How much do you know about Free Matter for the Blind?
-
Brief
Postal Bulletin takes a look at the annual employee survey