WILLOW WOOD – Outside of fair week, Albert "Mouse" Childers can be found most days carrying the mail.

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

WILLOW WOOD – Outside of fair week, Albert "Mouse" Childers can be found most days carrying the mail.

In fact, Childers has worked at the Willow Wood Post Office for 30 years now – an accomplishment for which the U.S. Postal Service honored him Tuesday.

Postmaster Earlein Meadows and postal employees, on behalf of USPS officials, presented Childers with a special plaque and a 30-year pin.

That doesn’t mean the rural mail carrier will stop his route, although his years of service make him eligible for retirement.

"I’ve never really thought about leaving," Childers said, as he ate celebratory cake with co-workers. "It’s a good job, and a good place to be."

Childers started in the early 1970s as a substitute rural carrier, coming to the post office after the military and after taking machinist training in school.

"This is my original hiring office," he said, adding that he also worked some at the Scottown Post Office.

Childers’s father-in-law, Rusty Lafon, carried mail for many years.

"He encouraged me, plus I looked at the benefits versus where I was working at a machine shop."

That’s when Childers found a perfect fit.

As a rural carrier, you really get acquainted with the customers, and the customers get to know you, too, he said.

"The good part of the job is you’re out in the scenery," Childers said, adding that there’s even some challenges thrown in each year.

"The days when you see the tree limbs weighted down with ice, you wish you just had a camera with you."

In addition to carrying the mail, Childers is a member of the Lawrence County Agricultural Society’s fair board. He also has served on the Symmes Valley school board for 20 years.