Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Jim Hemrich
Rural carrier
Last Friday, the 2017 Washington Rural Carrier Outstanding Member of the Year had just finished his route 10 minutes before.
“It was quite nice,” said Jim Hemrich of Endicott, who delivers mail for the U.S. Postal Service in the Garfield and Oakesdale areas.
“A little bit lighter volume, but boxholder phone books take up a lot of space, and quite a bit more time.”
The term “boxholder” refers to an item delivered to all boxes.
Hemrich, a 31-year Post Office veteran, was honored in June at the state Washington Rural Letter Carriers’ convention in Everett. He was subsequently fêted at the national convention in Maryland in August.
A 31-year postal veteran, Jim Hemrich, of Endicott, sorts mail at Oakesdale Saturday, Oct. 7. Hemrich is the Postal Carrier for Rural Route One in Garfield and Rural Route One in Oakesdale. He was awarded the 2017 Washington Rural Carrier Outstanding Member of the Year.
“I was completely surprised, and my gosh, I couldn’t have felt more honored,” he said.
Hemrich drives 131 miles per day, for just more than 200 customers total, about half of which live along gravel roads. Of his many longtime customers, he has delivered mail to four generations of the Storment family.
“Every day is different,” he said.
He drove the Endicott rural route for 27 years, and was transferred to Garfield in February 2015. He now starts his day in Garfield, sorts mail, drives the rural route in Oakesdale and returns to the post office there to sort mail in the noon hour.
“Strap it out,” said Hemrich, referring to the old-style manner of folding mail with leather or nylon straps to make bundles. “Some customers can be a little picky if their National Geographic magazine gets folded.”
Hemrich, 58, drives a right-hand-drive white Jeep Wrangler on the route. It is his third one. He previously drove three, right-hand Subaru Legacy wagons.
The only marking on the Jeep is on the spare tire cover at the back: “Rural Mail Carrier: Watch for Stops.”
What about driving a regular mail Jeep?
“Those things are borderline unsafe,” Hemrich said. “They have no traction, and no air-conditioning.”
One day, driving his Endicott route, he pulled up to a mailbox in Winona and noticed a snake in the road. As he drove off, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw no snake.
He continued to drive for about a half-mile, then stopped and looked under the Subaru to see the snake tail disappear up the rear differential.
Later, after finishing his route, Hemrich popped the hood to find the snake coiled around the car battery. He drove to a rancher friend’s, and the man used elbow-length welding gloves to pull the bull snake free.
All told, Hemrich drove more than 50 miles with the snake somewhere in the chassis.
“It did keep me alert for the rest of the route,” he said.
Hemrich started his postal career in Moscow in 1986 as a part-time carrier – rural carrier relief.
He had dropped out of WSU three years before and was working on an irrigation crew for Pullman Parks and Recreation and as part-time custodian for Pullman School District.
His pastor had a next-door neighbor in Moscow who was a long-time rural carrier and mentioned it to Hemrich.
“The more I worked it, the more I enjoyed that type of work,” Hemrich said.
Four years later, an opening came up in Endicott for a full-time rural carrier.
“What the heck, I’ll throw my name in the hat,” Hemrich said.
He soon bought a house and moved to Endicott.
“I always considered myself very fortunate that I had a job I loved doing,” he said. “Over the years, some of my greatest friends have been my fellow rural carriers and my co-workers.”
Hemrich was born in Othello, and spent most of his childhood in Kelso. He started at WSU in 1979 as “a hopeful engineering student.”
At WSU, in a precursor to what was to come, he distributed mail to post office boxes for a year at Waller Residence Hall. Living in the dorm, the job was unpaid, but he received full room and board.
The mail came in large cloth bags and required two hours to sort.
“It’s as true today as it was then. Everybody likes getting mail, especially when you’re a college student,” said Hemrich.
He did not have a plan when he dropped out.
“I had no idea what I’d be doing in five years, I was a person looking for a career,” Hemrich said.
Once begun as a postal carrier, weather became a factor in his daily routine.
“Most of the time it was not a problem. Now, this winter was a different story,” he said.
Hemrich counts it as the worst winter of his career.
“Most times it snows, it melts in a few days. This year the snow and ice just did not melt,” he said.
What about “neither snow, nor sleet, nor hail...?”
“That’s basically a bunch of garbage,” said Hemrich. “Delivering mail on time is not worth risking your life for.”
Hemrich was able to deliver at least part of his routes each day last winter.
“There were some days when the mail wouldn’t even show up to the post office,” he said, referring to how mail for Whitman County first gets routed through Spokane.
Hemrich is the only member of his extended family to work for the Postal Service. His father worked for USDA Federal Soil Conservation Service.
All told, in 31 years, Hemrich’s work has remained consistent. The main change has come recently.
“Huge increases in the volume of parcels,” he said. “Mostly in the last five years.”
Nearing the twilight of his career, Hemrich will have an option to retire in two years.
At age 60, the Postal Service offers carriers full retirement if they have 25 years of duty,
“It will depend on how I feel,” said Hemrich. “It’s kind of all in the open right now. Every day on the route, I never know what I’m going to see or who I’m going to see. There’s always some kind of pleasure in every day’s work.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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