WICHITA FALLS, TX — On Feb. 12, U.S. Postal Service Mail Processing Clerk James M. Barnes will be officially recognized at the Mail Processing Annex,1343 Hatton Rd., for having completed 50 years of Federal Service.  Barnes spent 49 of those years with the U.S. Postal Service.

A long time Wichita Falls Main Post Office employee, Barnes’ Postal career appointment began on November 20, 1959, with the position of Substitute Distribution Clerk.   Barnes starting salary at the time was $2 an hour. 

Barnes was born in nearby Quanah, TX, in 1935 just after the Great Depression and during the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  At 73 years young, he has been a staple in the Wichita Falls Postal Community.  Presently a Postage Due Clerk, Barnes has worked in various distribution clerk positions throughout his Postal career but found his true calling in his present position. “If there is postage due, Jim has or will collect it,” said Postmaster Linda Norwood.

As a railway postal clerk early in his career, Barnes was there during the times when lacking a sense of urgency would likely result in a missed dispatch. Railway clerks had to quickly work the mail, bundle it out, pouch it, tie it out and get it ready to hang on the dispatch line as the rail car passed by. If you missed it, you didn't have a second chance.

Barnes and his wife Martha, now deceased, were married for many years and raised three children; a daughter Judy and two sons, Steven and Richard. Barnes has lived in Wichita Falls since November 1959. Throughout his high school years he could hear, but before he began his career at the Post Office he began wearing a hearing aid and by 1960 he became completely hearing impaired. However, he never lost his ability to communicate and because of it he is the "go to" man when it comes to Postage Due or anything regarding letter or flat distribution.  Coworkers say Barnes still has the touch.

Barnes is a member of Highland Heights Baptist Church and an outstanding member in the community. He has five grandchildren and five decades of postal friends.

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation — 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.