Hanna postmaster ships out

After 20 years serving as postmaster for the Hanna Post Office Debbie Dancik-Paxton is retireing on July 2.

Hanna was not her first assignment. She started with the post office nearly 40 years ago.

"I started with the post office in Denver in 1986," Dancik-Paxton said. "I came to live with my father for the summer and saw an ad in the paper to take a postal test, I took the test and was hired."

Dancik-Paxton said she was 20 years old at the time and was happy to have a steady job with benefits. More importantly she loved what she did.

"Believe it or not, I knew this was going to be my career," Dancik-Paxton said. "I love the post office. It has been very good to me and I really have loved all the jobs I have had with it."

Dancik-Paxton became a supervisor while in Denver and had four clerks under her.

"I stayed in Denver until I got Albin in 1993," Dancik-Paxton remembers.

She became the postmaster at the Albin post office near Pine Bluffs and held that position for six years.

"I loved the job and house and I could have stayed there forever if it was a larger office, but the position at the Hanna post office became available and it was a level up, so I applied and got the job," Dancik-Paxton explained.

Dancik-Paxton said when she arrived in Hanna in September of 1999, the post office was still all manual.

"We didn't have computers when I first started in Hanna," Dancik-Paxton said. "It started to change really fast after 9/11. Security got way more intense. We could only accept packages over the counter."

She said the town had more people living in it, so there were more boxes than now. Ironically the post office was a lower level at that time than it is now and she had to run the post office with only a part time worker to relieve her on Saturdays and when she needed a day off. Five years ago the status changed and the post office gave her two clerks that could work with her.

"Although the town lost population, we got more volume of mail," Dancik-Paxton said.

She said the time has gone by fast.

"I honestly have friends here that were having babies when I arrived and now I have been to their kids' graduation," Dancik-Paxton said. "I literally watched a whole generation grow up here and that has been wonderful."

Dancik-Paxton did not spend the entire 20 years in Hanna. Once the post office got her workers, it picked her go to different towns and help work with post offices that needed assistance.

"I have probably worked at 30 different post offices in my 40 year career," Dancik-Paxton said.

"She said the first post office she went to help was in Granger, Colorado.

"I was there for 364 days," Dancik-Paxton said.

Encampment residents may remember her a couple years back when she helped out there. Bairoil was another town she helped out for several months in the recent years.

"It was 70 miles every day," Dancik-Paxton said. "I did that post office for over six months and, in the winter time, it was not a fun drive."

She remembers when an old boss dropped into the post office at Bairoil.

"For some reason he was driving through Bairoil and stopped in the post office," Dancik-Paxton said. "He looked over at the customers I was waiting on and he asked if I was treating them right and they all said yes. It was a funny moment because I hadn't seen him in a long time, and the customers' answers just make it a time I enjoy remembering."

When she went to other post offices in Carbon County, Dancik-Paxton commuted. When she was sent to different states, she obviously could not commute, so she found herself living in the towns. She enjoyed the experiences the different towns offered but she was always happy to return to Hanna.

"Carbon County has great residents. They are friendly and engaging," Dancik-Paxton. "I do love my customers."

Her last place she helped was the post office in Burns.

"I was there from early April until May," Dancik-Paxton. "The people were great, but it wasn't home."

She is looking forward to retirement. Dancik-Paxton bought a house in Cheyenne 10 years ago and has never lived in the house more than a week.

"It is time for me to live there," Dancik-Paxton said. "I do crafts and retiring will give me time to work on things, I just haven't. Ken (her husband) and I have family there and retiring allows us to go to warm places in the winter time."

She admits it is a little scary to be retiring.

"For 40 years, I have gotten up and gone to work every day with a vacation thrown in, so it is a little scary," Dancik-Paxton said. "The exciting thing is I don't have to get up and go to work."

She won't miss the wind that Hanna has.

"I kind of feel like I have been a therapist leaning over the counter with customers telling me their stories," Dancik-Paxton said. "I am really going to miss this community and as I leave, I wish the best for all wonderful friends that I have met."