By RACHEL HUNTER

Staff writer

Janis Maggard of Marion believes her new job as postmaster of the Cottonwood Falls office is an answer to prayer.

“I’m so blessed,” she said. “This post is about four miles closer than the other one I was considering and I get to live in the same community as my son and his family. That’s definitely a plus.”

Maggard has worked for the postal service for the past 28 years, including 15 years in Marion as a rural carrier substitute and eight years as a postal clerk in Peabody. Most recently, she spent nearly eight years in Walton.

She said she was all set to retire from the Walton position when it became a four-hour post job. This meant a full-time employee could no longer work there. Immediately, she started applying for other positions. She heard from several, but most were pretty far away. Several months passed before she finally got the call she had been waiting for: Cottonwood Falls was looking for a new postmaster.

At the time she was offered two positions, but she took the one in Cottonwood Falls because of the close proximity to her Marion home. Her son, Chuck, his wife, Heidi, and son Zeke also live in Cottonwood Falls..

“It’s convenient,” she said. “I’m able to have lunch with Zeke about twice a week. That’s a great benefit. Plus, it’s good to know that if there is bad weather, I have a place in town that I can go to.”

Maggard is finishing her first month on the job. She said there is definitely a learning curve to the position. She said it is basically a one-woman show behind the counter. As such, she has to do everything from sorting the mail to assisting customers at the counter. She is grateful, however, for a patient rural mail carrier.

“He is a real help,” she said. “If I hand him the wrong thing or put something in the wrong box, he just hands it back to me and tells me where it should go.”

The most difficult parts of her job right now are getting to know the people and the technology, but she said she enjoys the process, knowing that it will get easier in time.

“Usually, if I just tell people that I’m Chuck’s mom, they know who I am,” she said. “They’re pretty active in the community.”

Each morning she travels the 25 miles from Marion to Cottonwood Falls, but she doesn’t mind the commute too much.