Kathy Davis in as New Postmaster in Zortman

The new year rang-in a change at the Post Office in Zortman as resident Kathy Davis was named the area’s’ new Postmaster.

Davis started working at the Zortman Post Office in June of 2012 as the Postmaster Relief and was named the Postmaster on January 10 of this year, a position she is obviously familiar with.

“I was pretty much the Postmaster, I just didn’t have the title,” she said. “So that is very exciting.”

Davis replaces Donna McIntosh as Zortman’s Postmaster. Davis, who was raised in the town, had been working in Malta – MOI for 10 years and a spell at Dairy Queen -- prior to joining USPS in 2012 and said that the commute to Malta was just getting to be too much to handle. When she heard about the post office in Zortman she acted quickly and obtained the Postmaster Relief position.

The Davis family has resided in Zortman since 1916 so Davis was quick to know each of the folks that get their mail delivered to the Zortman Post Office. Davis said that there are currently 50 P.O. Boxes in Zortman. Couple that with the rout sent to Landusky – 28-people when people are home – leaving her to handle approximately 10-inches and 10-inches in flats (measured top to bottom) during her normal routine as well as eight to 10 packages per week.

“Some weeks we get a lot of mail and other weeks we hardly get anything,” Davis said. “Just like any days there are good days and there are bad days, but I do enjoy my job.”

Davis said in 2012 there was a possibility that the Post Office in Zortman was going to possibly be shut down and Zortman and Landusky residents were faced with having to drive to either Malta or Hays to retrieve their mail. She said that a town meeting was held and most of the Post Office customers showed up.

“There are a lot of elderly people here and it would have been hard on their pocketbooks to have to drive somewhere else to pick up their mail,” Davis added. “That and having to drive all that way in the winter would have been a huge inconvenience.”

She said that the only thing that saved the Zortman facility was the fact that the town is 35 miles away from the next nearest post office.

“They were trying to say that Hays was only 11-miles away,” Davis remembers. “We said ‘yeah, as the crow flies’. But to drive there it is a long way to drive.”