COLUMBUS – Today, in the historic Mildred L. Terry Branch of the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries, Barbara J. King was sworn in as Columbus’ 13th postmaster of record.

With recorded postal history in Columbus, Georgia dating back to Postmaster Alfred Young, who became Acting Postmaster on July 31, 1949 later to be sworn in as Postmaster on May 22, 1952, this long-standing tradition of trust has been a treasured sector in the history of the United States Postal Service.

With Columbus having 12 previous postmasters and 21 acting postmasters, Ms. King has become the next in line to embrace this position of leadership in the Columbus community.  Postmasters live on all over our country along with mail delivery to every address, every day. Universal service and postmasters serving the community are only two of the highlights of the jobs of the nearly 600,000 employees of the United States Postal Service.

With a multitude of years in management and vast experience in every area, Mrs. King is working to continue her quest for the Postal Service to become the carrier of choice for all Columbus-area customers.  Mrs. King began her postal career in 1985 as a mail processing clerk in Birmingham, AL.  While in the Birmingham area, she held positions such as Supervisor, Distribution Operations; Customer Service Analyst; Delivery and Retail Analyst; Operations Support Specialist and Postmaster in Gardendale, AL.  She has also held a number of temporary assignments to further ground her management experience.  In November 2008, she was promoted to Postmaster in Savannah, GA and, until this year, had been actively involved with the Savannah community schools, city officials, local colleges, her church and many other organizations.

Mrs. King attended the University of Birmingham and will continue her studies while in Columbus.  She is married to Clarence King and is the proud mother of three sons.   

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no direct support from taxpayers. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500.