Postmaster General Pat Donahoe, l, and NRLCA President, Jeanette Dwyer, r, recognize l to r: overall winner Ronald Floyd, Michael Crowe of Arkansas, who performed the Heimlich Maneuver on a choking victim and Debbie Smith of Kentucky, who saved a woman from drowning.

Ronald Floyd, Route 1 Rural Carrier in Loris, SC was named overall winner of the 2012 Hero of the Year award by the National Rural Letter Carrier Association, for helping a customer on his route in February, 2011. Floyd was one of five nominated for the national honor by NRLCA. He was one of 331 employees recognized for heroism by the Postal Service nationwide in 2011.

The honor and a special plaque were conferred on him by Postmaster General Pat Donahoe at the NRLCA convention in Buffalo, NY on August 14. This is the first time an employee from South Carolina has won the award.

As Floyd was delivering mail for a customer, Ms. Shipley, he noticed a fire, spreading on the property. She dialed 911 and he found a garden hose to extinguish the flames. At the end of his route, he returned to check up on the scene, found the fire had flared up again, and repeated his actions. “He is a wonderful man, and I am so grateful for his assistance,” said Shipley.

“I’m thankful for this honor,” said Floyd, “there are hundreds of other Postal employees that helped their customers who are equally deserving. At some point in everyone’s life, they unexpectedly become part of another person’s emergency. I’m thankful that I was put in the circumstance where I could be of help when that time came. In my way of thinking, I only did what anyone else would’ve done for a neighbor in need.”

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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.