2016 LOCALS LOVE: Residents love postal worker Jane Mitchell

GRANITE SHOALS — If you want to know why Horseshoe Bay Post Office worker Jane Mitchell was voted the Locals Love Us favorite postal worker for the Llano area, all you have to do is watch her with her customers as they drop off and pick up mail. 
Mitchell talked football with one gentleman, suggested to grandparents that they might want to send their grandkids stamps to encourage them to write more and even assisted a woman in finding the right box for a Valentine’s Day gift she was sending to her 87-year-old dad. 
In fact, Mitchell said, helping is her favorite part of the job. 
“We have so many older people here,” she said. “They’re not exactly sure what to do and how to send things.”
Mitchell has been suggesting and aiding for 30 years, spending the past 20 years in Horseshoe Bay. Before that, she worked in Albany, Killeen and Marble Falls. 
What drew her to the postal service were the benefits, including vacation time, holidays and retirement.
“Other advantages that are unheard of today,” she said. 
What’s kept her in the profession is serving people, she said, and the joy they get when they send or receive a parcel. 
“It’s been such a good job I couldn’t leave it,” she said. 
She has no plans of retiring soon, enjoying the conversations with the people who drop by the post office.
“Some days I would (think about retiring), and other days I think, ‘What would I do?’” she said. “I don’t garden and I don’t clean house.”
After all, in retirement, Mitchell couldn’t help people, and they couldn’t let her know how much they appreciate her just as The Picayune readers and KBEY 103.9 FM Radio Picayune listeners did in the Locals Love Us awards. 
“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “I got (the award) last year in fact. I’m surprised it’s two in a row. I must be doing a better job than I thought I was doing.”
jfierro@thepicayune.com