New postmaster bids farewell to veteran clerk

Shelbyville Postmaster Kimberly Mertz (left) confers with Joe Wessley Brown, who's retiring from the Postal Service in March after working here during three decades. (T-G Photo by Clint Confehr) [Click to enlarge]

Snow and sleet have not yet afflicted the U.S. Postal Service in Shelbyville this winter; but before spring, rural routes will be counted, a veteran mail clerk will retire and the postmaster will be closer to her first anniversary here.

And having started her service here in June, Postmaster Kimberly Mertz is believed to be the first female postmaster in Shelbyville since Izola C. Johnson's tenure that started in 1873, according to local historian Dick Poplin, who's relying on national archives for his statement.

Mertz was appointed to lead the post office here as a result of a program designed to infuse new blood into the postal service at a time when regular mail is sometimes seen as the default system of delivery in a computer age with expanding competition for private services like UPS and Tennessee-based Federal Express.

But automation hasn't passed the postal service. It's the biggest change seen by Joe Wessley Brown, 63, who's retiring March 3 with 30 years of federal service; 25 of those years with the postal service here.

"When I started, we hand-sorted everything," Brown said last week while reviewing postal operations in an interview with Mertz.

"We send mail to Nashville and it comes back in mail sequence," Mertz said. "Their goal is to have 85 percent in delivery order when it comes back."

Mertz says machines in Nashville read addresses even if its upside down and Mertz explains some sorting lines for packages have five cameras focused on addresses.

Such wizardry is part of the daily routine behind the walls of the sorting center at Donelson, but here in Shelbyville, preparations are in the works for another annual count in conjunction with rural route carriers contract with the postal service.

"City carriers are paid by the hour," Mertz said. "Rural route carriers are paid by an evaluated process."

The count is conducted during the two weeks between Feb. 24 and March 9.

"We count every piece of mail that comes in and that's considered to be their average daily volume applied to the year," Mertz said. "Now, we're busy counting all the routes and inspecting the routes in preparation for the count."

The number of delivery places -- business and residential -- are to be known for the county, she said.

The miles on a route are also considered, Mertz said.

As the rural route carriers pay calculation can change this year, last year the post office here was Mertz's new assignment

Originally from Iowa, Mertz concedes that she has "northern ears" on how to hear what people are saying, yet since she moved here with her husband, Bob, she's been asking people to repeat themselves less and less.

Shelbyville was an assignment she requested because the town's size and temperament are similar to where she grew up, Webster City, Iowa, just east of Fort Dodge and about 50 miles north of Des Moines. Webster had a population of about 9,000 when she lived there, Mertz said.

"I'm glad to be working with the people of Shelbyville," Mertz said. "I have an open door policy and will talk directly to our customers."

That approach to Middle Tennessee follows several business trips to Nashville when a previous employer had a big client there.

She was favorably impressed by Middle Tennessee, she said.

Later, while working for Iowa Sate University in Ames, she became aware of the postal service's management intern program.

It has had 3,000 applicants who had to have a master's degree to be considered. Ten percent are called in, tested, graded and a short list of 60 were interviewed. From that list 30 management interns were selected.

Mertz was one of those 30, selected out of an original field of 3,000. That made her one of 1 percent of the original group.

"Traditionally, the U.S. Postal Service promoted from within, but roughly 60 percent of the upper level managers and executives will be retiring in the next 5-10 years, so they wanted to inject new blood into the middle of the stream," Mertz said.

The top 30 applicants were offered the opportunity to select jobs from various parts of the country and the southeastern states are considered highly prized assignments because of the weather that's warmer than the north, but still having four distinct seasons.

Shelbyville had an opening because Postmaster John Maynard was promoted to be the vehicle maintenance facility manager in Nashville. Smithville Postmaster Michael Lynn was serving as interim postmaster until Mertz was awarded her new job. She started June 13.

The work has delivered on her expectations and she's proud to say the post office here "is one of the top-ranked post offices in the state in terms of delivering express mail on time and when carriers are back at the post office at the end of the day."

It's safer when they're back before total darkness of night, she said.

Before moving to Shelbyville, Mertz and her husband lived in Mt. Juliet for a couple of years during her internship when she became familiar with virtually all of the operations of the postal service in Nashville and how it relates to operations at the local offices.

As she's settled in, Joe Brown is coming to a conclusion of 25 years of service at the post office here.

He's served as a letter carrier and a clerk at the office with 12 1/2 to 13 years in each position. Brown has delivered mail to every building with an address in Shelbyville that was built before he changed jobs and became a clerk.

"He's going to be sorely missed," Mertz said, but the veteran of the postal service here was modest about that.

"Somebody will fill my shoes," he said. "It's never closed down after someone left."

As Brown contemplates spending more time with his wife, Neita, and playing with his grandchildren during and between fishing trips, Times-Gazette columnist Dick Poplin quickly looked up some facts about the postal service here.

The General Services Administration's National Archives Records Service shows that in 1830 the postmaster here was Thomas Davis. He was a merchant, as was the case with most small town post offices at the time.

Jerry W. Cook of Wartrace works with local archival records at The Fly Arts Center just down South Main Street from the Argie Cooper Public Library, Poplin said. That library building served as Shelbyville's post office for many years. Those records name John Stone as the first postmaster in Shelbyville, but he isn't named in Poplin's records.

Stone's postal service was conducted from his store located on the north side of the Shelbyville Public Square where the Dixie Hotel was later built. After the hotel was torn down, the area became site of U.S. Bank.

Izola C. Johnson was the postmaster here in 1873. She is the only female named in national archives found by Poplin.

"I wouldn't say there wasn't another, but it's unusual that there was a woman that early," says Poplin.

"If anyone gets information on Izola Johnson, I'd like to know about it," said Poplin, noting that Ulysses S. Grant was president from 1869 to 1877, and therefore appointed Johnson.