Dennis Berner has been walking and driving around town most of his life.
He’s worn out his share of footwear.
Sometimes hoofing house-to-house and other times driving slowly along the curbline until he comes to a mailbox.
During a short meeting at the Augusta Post Office this week, Berner received a certificate saluting his four decades of service with the U.S. Postal Service.
This letter carrier started working there as a part-time flexible clerk (PTFC) when he was in Butler County Junior College. His father, Leon Berner, was the post office janitor and custodian.
“I learned every street in the city limits when I was a PTFC,” recalls the 59-year-old Berner. He took the Civil Service test and became a substitute carrier in 1982 and went full-time in 1985.
He’s also received a certificate for 40 years of safe driving - first a Postal Jeep and now a Postal Long Life Vehicle (a small white delivery van).
Berner met and married his wife Jan at First Baptist Church. They are parents of Allison Berner, an Augusta High grad like her father and now a student at Evangel College in Springfield, Mo., where her mother attended.
Orville Hopkins was Augusta’s postmaster when Berner began working. He’s worked under five others since.
The bulk of his service years have been on City Route 4 - neighborhoods north of Kelly and east of Cron. The route has 730 stops where Berner delivers using the LLV along the curbline and/or “park and loop” methods.
Three years ago, he slipped on a muddy area and broke his leg. A surgically-implanted plate and six screws later he was back on the route - a job that he’s not quite ready to retire from.
Augusta, Kan. —
