Brent Beach: A

million mile man
By Scott Nicholson

Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night can keep Brent Beach from his appointed rounds.

Beach, a Boone postal carrier, was honored Thursday as a member of the U.S. Postal Service’s “Million Mile Club,” an award given to postal carriers who have reached 30 years of service without being responsible for an automobile crash.

Beach, who started delivering mail part-time in 1973, has spent his entire career in the Boone area. He started out on Route 4, got his first full-time job with Route 5 in 1980, and since 1989 he has been delivering mail on Route 1, which covers the Hardin Road, Parkway Elementary School and Castle Ford Road areas.

“I don’t see myself as lucky,” Beach said of his driving record. “I see myself as blessed.”

Beach has had his vehicle hit a few times, though he wasn’t at fault in the collisions. Once his vehicle was struck and rolled several times down an embankment, landing in a creek, and Beach still laments that some of the mail was lost. Mail that had spilled into the creek was illegible and had to be sent to the legendary Dead Letter Office.

“I was bruised from head to toe but I had only a little cut on my knee,” he said. In addition to road adventures, he’s also found odd creatures in mailboxes such as a dead possum and a live snake.

However, it’s the people that make the job worthwhile. “What I really like about my job is the goodness of the people,” Beach said. “They care for you and pray for you when it’s icy and foggy.”

Beach said mail carriers can’t always live up to their promise of all-weather delivery simply because sometimes the mail can’t make it up the mountain to the individual carriers.

Beach recalled one day he showed up in the winter only to find the snow completely blocked off the building, so he could only deliver the cluster box of mail he already had. For the most part, though, he says carriers stick to the slogan “Every piece, every day.”

Beach’s typical workday begins at 6:30 a.m. when he comes in and does the “casing,” which is sorting mail into a series of slotted boxes in the order it will be delivered.

On Mondays or after holidays, he comes in even earlier, because the mail is still arriving even when the post office is closed.

Once the mail is sorted, he sets out on his route, where he’s made friends along the way.
Some are waiting by the mailbox to say hello.

“As long as I’ve been on the route, I’ve been watching the kids grow up,” he said.

“The U.S. Postal Service is a service,” Beach added.

“I love seeing people and showing up with a package the day before Christmas.”

Beach expects he will deliver the mail for several more years, since his daughter just informed him she’d be attending graduate school after her May graduation from college.

“I’ll need a few more years of tuition,” he said.

Beach joins Cloid Bolick, Larry Richards and Bo Bowman as the other local carriers in the Million Mile Club. He was awarded a plaque Thursday by Boone Postmaster Lee Montgomery.

The Million Mile Club is the highest honor given to a professional driver in the workplace, awarded by the National Safety Council and held to a status equivalent to climbing Mt. Everest.

Beach estimates he’s used about 15 different vehicles in his career. Those who use their own vehicles get reimbursement, and Beach has 112,000 miles on his current Subaru wagon.

He said learning to drive with the wheel on the traditional passenger’s side wasn’t difficult, but it took about a year to become practiced.

“I still occasionally walk around to the wrong side of the vehicle,” he said.

Bowman was also honored Thursday for his 35 years of service. The U.S. Postal Service delivers mail to about 149 million residences, businesses, and P.O. boxes nationally.