If you want a familiar face in Fort Lupton, you need go no further than the post office.
You’ll likely see the smiling visage of Head Postal Clerk Jeannie Plucker, working in the same location these past 32 1/2 years. That’s just fine with Plucker, who enjoys the work, and more so the people that come in to visit the small office.
“It’s the people that I like,” Plucker said. “They are the best part of the job.”
During her three decades at the Fort Lupton location, she has done it all, including hand-delivering the mail to recipients in the city.
“I was a carrier for the first five years,” Plucker said. “City carrier. I walked it, a walking route.”
At the time Plucker started with the postal service, there was only one mail vehicle for the city, so Plucker only drove that route to fill in when the other carrier was out sick or on vacation.
“The rest were walking in town,” she said. “One of the routes was a 15-mile walking route.”
Working from drop boxes, the carriers would cover their routes, occasionally stopping at a box to pick up the next leg of mail before continuing on.
“We would just fill up and keep going,” Plucker explained.
Plucker started with the service in 1980, at the age of 29. Worried about her husband Alvin’s health issues (He was a prisoner of war for 11 months in 1968, when his ship, the USS Pueblo, was seized by the North Koreans) Plucker took the U.S. postal service test, passed and signed on.
“I just didn’t know how his health was going to hold up through the years, so I thought I should get a job that could support my family and have good benefits,” Plucker explained.
As it turns out, Alvin is still going strong, having retired seven years ago. A chaplain at the Evans VFW, he would like a little more time with Jeannie, something she wants to provide as they travel to USS Pueblo reunions and other activities. Still, she says she will have a hard time letting go of the small town charm she enjoys in her work at the post office.
“They always say the big offices are the blood of the postal service,” Jeanne related. “But the small offices are the heart and the soul. That’s because we can be more personal with our customers, we don’t have as large a group, and we see them more frequently.
“In a small town, you get to know them, and their kids, and their grandkids,” Plucker added. “I just hate it when the obituaries come out in the paper, because it’s always someone you know.”
A mother to three and now a grandmother, Plucker’s motivation to retire is based, in large part, on her desire to care for her kindergarten-age granddaughter while her own daughter finishes nursing school.
“I told her, “I can retire and help you get her to school and pick her up,’” Plucker said. “I said that could be my excuse to finally retire.”
Plucker also intends to get into some long-awaited quilting, an interest she developed while working.
“This town has some of the most amazing quilters that I have met while working at the post office,” Plucker said. “I’m looking forward to them helping me learn quilting.”
The quilters are just one portion of the many friends Plucker says she will miss with her retirement, along with her colleagues in the office.
“The people I work with at the Fort Lupton Post Office, they are all just an amazing group of people. They really love the customers, they give good personal service, and they really do put forth what the customer asks for, which is service. I will really miss all of them too.”
Plans are in the works for Plucker’s August retirement bash, and a punch and cookies day in July to honor her customers and friends. Details will appear in the happenings section as soon as they are released.
Contact Staff Writer Gene Sears at gsears@metrowestnewspapers.com