SAN FRANCISCO — In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Lady Washington’s trips along the Pacific Coast, the U.S. Postal Service will provide a special postal cancellation commemorating her travel beginning with a simulation battle off Pier 39. San Francisco Postmaster Abraham Cooper will ink the first pictorial postmark at Sports Byline USA on Sail Sport Talk during Rick Tittle’s show on an international audio broadcast to 82 million people on 10 platforms, including the American Forces Network.

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019, 9:12 PDT San Francisco Postmaster Abraham Cooper will ink the first Building Bridges Lady Washington Special Postal Cancellation at Sail Sport Talk Radio station located at 300 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94133. Postmaster Cooper will present it to PICYA Jr. Staff Commodore Winston Bumpus in a live audio broadcast.  Co-hosts Rick Tittle and Karen Lile will interview the two dignitaries as part of Sail Sport Talk inside the Rick Tittle Show which is broadcast on 200 radio stations in the U.S., Sirius XM Channel 211, CRN Digital Talk Radio Networks Channel 2 it will be rebroadcast at 15:12 PDT on the American Forces Network to 168 countries, 500 radio stations.  It will also stream as video live on Twitch, and audio live on:  iHeartRadio, tune-in radio, www.sportsbyline.com and be available in Titillating Sports podcasts afterwards.

From April 23 to May 20, 2019, the commemorative cachet envelopes, stamps, with the free pictorial postmark applied, can be purchased at the San Francisco Main Post Office, located at 1300 Evans Ave., San Francisco, CA 94188 during regular business hours. 

The Postal Services has a rich tradition of recognizing significant historical events through pictorial representations on stamps and locally produced unique postmarks.  The first postal station in the American Colonies was in 1639 and mail has a long history from that date until modern transportation was invented, of delivering mail over ocean voyages on Tall Ships.  In 1788, the original Lady Washington became the first American vessel to make landfall on the west coast of North America and Captain Robert Gray is the man that Grays Harbor in Aberdeen Washington is named after.  Winston Bumpus, who is receiving this Building Bridges Lady Washington Pictorial Postmark from Postmaster Cooper, has ancestral ties to the original Robert Gray whose family home is in Rhode Island.

Karen Lile is the USPS - Building Bridges Art Director/Executive Producer. The image in the rectangle portion of the April 21, 2019 Postmark is illustrated by Grays Harbor Historical Seaport a public authority in Aberdeen Washington that owns the Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain and runs their programs.  The Building Bridges logo was designed by Karen Lile and Kendall Bean in 1992 and has been the symbol of the partnership between the Walnut Creek based non-profit organization Building Bridges and USPS since 1996. 

The two Tall Ship’s (Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain) will embark on an eight month journey along the Pacific Coast from port to port providing educational programs for K-12 students, adventure sails for the public and maritime training for aspiring career mariners  Their voyage is detailed here:  http://www.pier39toaberdeen.com

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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