SALT LAKE CITY – A new forever stamp featuring the Utah State Flag debuts today at Post Offices nationwide joining a stamp series honoring the Flags of Our Nation.

The Postal Service is in the final year of a five-year launch of a 60-stamp series that includes the Stars and Stripes, all 50 state flags, five territorial flags, and the District of Columbia flag. The stamps have been issued in alphabetical order with Alabama through Tennessee having already been issued in previous years, and Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming — the flag of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the flag of the United States, all being released today as forever stamps.

The Utah stamp is being sold as part of the sixth and final set of 10 stamps in the Flags of Our Nation series, and cannot be purchased separately. The stamps will be available in 50-stamp coils with five of each stamp in the set.

“Flags are our nation’s greatest symbols for unity and pride and the values we hold dear,” said USPS Salt Lake District Manager Ken McArthur. “Our hope is that these stamps will generate renewed pride in our nation’s flags, including the one from the great state of Utah.”

In addition to the flag art, each stamp design includes artwork that provides a “snapshot view” of the state or other area represented by a particular flag. In most cases, an everyday scene or activity is shown. The Utah Flag stamp features the state seal; the beehive represents hard work and industry. Blooming cactus and a highly stylized arch formation form the background.

All six sets of the Flags of Our Nation Stamps are available at the Postal Store website at usps.com/shop or by calling 1-800-STAMP24 (1-800-782-6724).

A First-Day-of-Sale Postmark for the Utah Flags of Our Nation Stamp will be available by mail only. Customers may affix first-class postage to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in a larger envelope addressed to: Flags of Our Nation Postmark, 1760 W. 2100 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84199-9998. After applying the postmark, the USPS will return the envelopes through the mail. Requests must be postmarked no later than Sept. 16, 2012.

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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, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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