By Scott Nicholson
Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night can keep
Brent Beach from his appointed rounds.
Brent Beach has driven
a million miles on his postal route without causing
an accident.
Photo By
Scott Nicholson |
Beach, a Boone postal carrier, was honored Thursday as
a member of the U.S. Postal Service’s “Million
Mile Club,” an award given to postal carriers who have
reached 30 years of service without being responsible for
an automobile crash.
Beach, who started delivering mail part-time in 1973, has
spent his entire career in the Boone area. He started out
on Route 4, got his first full-time job with Route 5 in
1980, and since 1989 he has been delivering mail on Route
1, which covers the Hardin Road, Parkway Elementary School
and Castle Ford Road areas.
“I don’t see myself as lucky,” Beach said
of his driving record. “I see myself as blessed.”
Beach has had his vehicle hit a few times, though he wasn’t
at fault in the collisions. Once his vehicle was struck
and rolled several times down an embankment, landing in
a creek, and Beach still laments that some of the mail was
lost. Mail that had spilled into the creek was illegible
and had to be sent to the legendary Dead Letter Office.
“I was bruised from head to toe but I had only a little
cut on my knee,” he said. In addition to road adventures,
he’s also found odd creatures in mailboxes such as
a dead possum and a live snake.
However, it’s the people that make the job worthwhile.
“What I really like about my job is the goodness of
the people,” Beach said. “They care for you and
pray for you when it’s icy and foggy.”
Beach said mail carriers can’t always live up to their
promise of all-weather delivery simply because sometimes
the mail can’t make it up the mountain to the individual
carriers.
Beach recalled one day he showed up in the winter only to
find the snow completely blocked off the building, so he
could only deliver the cluster box of mail he already had.
For the most part, though, he says carriers stick to the
slogan “Every piece, every day.”
Beach’s typical workday begins at 6:30 a.m. when he
comes in and does the “casing,” which is sorting
mail into a series of slotted boxes in the order it will
be delivered.
On Mondays or after holidays, he comes in even earlier,
because the mail is still arriving even when the post office
is closed.
Once the mail is sorted, he sets out on his route, where
he’s made friends along the way.
Some are waiting by the mailbox to say hello.
“As long as I’ve been on the route, I’ve
been watching the kids grow up,” he said.
“The U.S. Postal Service is a service,” Beach
added.
“I love seeing people and showing up with a package
the day before Christmas.”
Beach expects he will deliver the mail for several more
years, since his daughter just informed him she’d be
attending graduate school after her May graduation from
college.
“I’ll need a few more years of tuition,”
he said.
Beach joins Cloid Bolick, Larry Richards and Bo Bowman as
the other local carriers in the Million Mile Club. He was
awarded a plaque Thursday by Boone Postmaster Lee Montgomery.
The Million Mile Club is the highest honor given to a professional
driver in the workplace, awarded by the National Safety
Council and held to a status equivalent to climbing Mt.
Everest.
Beach estimates he’s used about 15 different vehicles
in his career. Those who use their own vehicles get reimbursement,
and Beach has 112,000 miles on his current Subaru wagon.
He said learning to drive with the wheel on the traditional
passenger’s side wasn’t difficult, but it took
about a year to become practiced.
“I still occasionally walk around to the wrong side
of the vehicle,” he said.
Bowman was also honored Thursday for his 35 years of service.
The U.S. Postal Service delivers mail to about 149 million
residences, businesses, and P.O. boxes nationally.
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