Several years ago, Donald Bosworth couldn't find his mother-in-law, Bernice Robertson.
She wasn't in her Morse Bluff home. Bosworth didn't know where she was, but he knew who would: Peg Phillips, the local postmaster. Sure enough, Phillips knew Robertson was at the senior center, where patrons were celebrating birthdays.
Years later, Bosworth and his wife, Mary Jo, listed Postmaster Joan Stenger as a contact for the Lifeline alert service through Fremont Area Medical Center. They knew they could trust Stenger with a key to Robertson's home and that the postmaster would check on her if something was wrong. To the Bosworths - who worked out of town - Stenger was a lifeline to Robertson.
Today, the Bosworths are among area residents working to keep the U.S. Postal Service from closing offices in several small towns throughout the region. The postal service has been losing money as fewer people are sending payments and letters through the mail. The service lost $10 billion last year and is looking as closing 3,700 offices across the nation to help cut costs.
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Small-town residents contend, however, that the post offices are the hubs in their local communities and closing them would cause hardships for the elderly and businesses - and even hamper future growth.
In a 60-day review period, the postal service is obligated to have a community meeting, send out a questionnaire and receive written comments. Area residents have been attending meetings, circulating petitions, sending letters to elected officials and gathering questionnaires and written comments for dockets that the postal service will review before making determinations. Deadlines for that data are fast approaching. Snyder has until Tuesday, although resident Lori Scherer said citizens were asked to submit surveys and comments sooner so they could meet the deadline. The deadline is Dec. 1 for Morse Bluff and Dec. 5 for Prague.
Scherer estimated that 110 people attended a public meeting with postal officials on Sept. 22 in Snyder. Morse Bluff resident Jerrine Racek said approximately 150 people were at that town's Oct. 17 meeting and Prague business owner Nancy Stava said about 350 people went to that community's Oct. 27 meeting.
Racek said she has almost 200 signatures on a petition and Stava said Prague's petition is just 55 signatures away from 500. Although Prague only had about 350 people in the 2000 census, Stava said signatures also are from people who live elsewhere but do business at that town's post office.
Area residents are taking other steps.
Racek said Morse Bluff residents are sending letters to lawmakers and reminding fellow citizens to complete the surveys.
"There's a lot of work to be done," she added. "We need to make sure that people are filling out their questionnaires and optional comments."
The Village of Prague will include an additional reminder with the November utilities statements.
Residents also have posted signs. Two of several signs in Prague said: "Rural America Deserves a Post Office, Too" and "You've got mail ... Will we?"
Such signs reflect many residents' sentiments.
"I personally feel like it's an attack on rural America," said Roger Paseka, president of the Bank of Prague. "I know we don't have the numbers when it comes to population, but we don't deserve to become second-class citizens and be receiving reduced services from the postal service."
Paseka and others contend the postal service will only save a small fraction of what it needs by closing the offices.
Data from the National League of Postmasters states that: "Rural post offices cost the postal service a minuscule amount of money - about seven-tenths of 1 percent of the USPS total expense."
The league said the postal service's problems stem not from having too many offices, but the recession and "the fact that the postal service is forced to pay billions of dollars every year to prefund its employee retirement obligation and its employee retirement health benefits obligation even though it has already paid enough money into the system to essentially fund both."
Residents add the closings would cause hardships for the elderly. Racek said postmasters know if seniors have come to get their mail - and that something might be wrong if they don't.
"The postmaster provides assistance to the senior and handicapped citizens in bad weather, taking mail to their vehicles and delivering mail to their home, if necessary, making sure their prescriptions do not sit in the mailboxes, subjected to excessive heat and cold," she said.
Many seniors also don't have computers to do business online and probably never will, she added.
Paseka said plans are to have Prague residents go to Bruno, 10 miles away, for postal services. That commute, Stava said, is the opposite direction that residents take to go to work, to shop or get groceries in places like Fremont and Wahoo.
The road to Bruno is one of the last ones to be cleared of ice and snow, she added.
Paseka said the bank sends letters via certified mail or with return receipts. That would mean sending an employee to Bruno, putting that person at risk and causing increased expenses.
Scherer, human resources director and an owner of Smeal Fire Apparatus, said a similar situation exists if Snyder residents must make the 34-mile round trip to North Bend.
She notes Snyder-based companies Danko, Smeal Fire Apparatus and Smeal Manufacturing generate more than $27,000 per year in postage. That doesn't include the Omaha Steaks business in Snyder.
Currently, Smeal Fire Apparatus picks up mail in the morning at the post office and takes it down at the end of the day.
"It's going to be really tough for our business if we only get service one time a day," she said.
It would put the business a day behind, if a customer requests that a part be sent right away through the postal system, but doesn't call until after that 10 a.m. delivery time, she said, adding the company has customers across the nation and in Canada.
"I think it makes it look bad for rural America," she said. "It makes us look like a bunch of hicks - that we can barely get our mail."
She added the town's population doubles during the day when employees come to work at the plants and use that town's postal service, because by the time they get off work, their post offices would be closed.
Besides causing current problems, small-towns residents believe the closures could hurt future growth.
"One of the attractive features of bringing in new business is having a post office," Racek said. "If you don't have a post office and don't bring in new business, you can lose the old businesses and then you lose tax revenue."
As small-town residents continue their efforts, Racek expresses optimism.
"I think we're doing real well," she said. "We're going to have a real impressive docket."
