Hovland Postmaster Sandy Updyke’s last day will be June 1, 2012. She has enjoyed greeting the Hovland public since 1971. Hovland postal customers Rich and Jan stop to get their mail—and to chat about tomatoes and the tick population.
As she counts down the days until retirement on June 1, 2012, Hovland Postmaster Sandy Updyke continues to sort mail, scan packages and greet customers. Watching her in action, it is obvious that the last task is her favorite. And it is shared by Toby, her golden retriever sidekick.
Toby has accompanied Updyke to work every day for all of his nine years, happily lying on a cushion behind the counter unless someone offers a treat. “He’ll probably have people withdrawal,” said Updyke. “I probably will too.”
Updyke has enjoyed greeting Hovland postal customers since she started at the former post office—in the home of Millie Mainella—in September 1971. She started as a part-time flexible clerk and enjoyed working with Mainella in the tiny post office on the Highway 61 side of the house. Updyke grinned as she recalled Charlie Mainella’s cooking. “He was a cook and he was always bringing in goodies,” she said.
Postmaster Sandy Updyke’s golden retriever Toby will miss the daily interaction with the people of Hovland.
When Millie Mainella retired and she and Charlie moved to Arizona, Updyke became the officer-in-charge, the OIC. She was promoted to postmaster on January 13, 1979. She still worked in a small section of the house on Highway 61, but now it was owned by her sister and brother-in-law, Dusty and Eric Nelms.
A new post office was built near the bottom of the Arrowhead Trail in 1999. Things are quite different in the “new” building. There is much more room for sorting mail, she said, noting that the entire old post office could fit in the sorting area in the new building. There is better air circulation too. “Sorting mail is a dirty job,” said Updyke.
There is also room for technology—a credit card machine, package scanners, and a computer. A far cry from the crowded corner of the house visited by the FBI in 1997. To the “beep-beep-beep” of a package scanner, Updyke described the day when men in black suits with badges arrived to commandeer the Hovland Post Office computer, copier and fax machine. The FBI was there to investigate the now infamous “Hovland bank robbers,” William Kirkpatrick and his girlfriend Myra Penny. It was later learned that Kirkpatrick and his accomplice had completed the largest take in bank robbery history—$4,461,681. Updyke laughed as she recalls that she was no help in the investigation. “All I had was a telephone!”
The new post office looks decidedly different. Although a bank of combination lock mailboxes sits behind the counter, they are just a little bit of history. The actual post office boxes—which vary from about 100 to 298, depending on arrivals and departures of snowbirds—are now opened by keys. Unless they are expecting a package, customers can serve themselves. “People don’t have to talk to you—but they do,” said Updyke, smiling.
Customers stop to chat about the weather, to get a report on the number of ticks Toby collected on recent hikes, to talk about an expected package. Sometimes the packages are unusual. The post office has handled ducks and chickens—and even bees. Updyke said bees are perhaps the most interesting. “There are always some of them that ride on the outside of the package,” she said. “They don’t hurt anything. Once in awhile one will buzz around the office, but they always head back to the hive.”
Bees aren’t the only wildlife that Updyke dealt with over the years. For decades, the Hovland Post Office was a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources registration station. The inspection of the deer and bear taken in the Hovland area ended when the DNR went to electronic licensing. Until then, Updyke enjoyed another way to get to know her neighbors. “It was just another community service,” said Updyke.
That is what she will miss, said Updyke. “I won’t miss the computer work, but I’ll miss the day-to-day interaction—the laughs and sometimes the tears.”
On June 1, Amy Nielson of Hovland will take over operations at the post office as the officer-in-charge. Updyke will still be involved. She will serve as postmaster relief— a substitute—if Nielson is unavailable for some reason. “So I’ll still be here,” she said.
Friends and neighbors will also see her around the community. She’ll be gardening and doing more photography. And in the immediate future she is helping plan the Hovland Arts Festival.
And, postal customers will see her in the lobby, getting her mail on the other side of the P.O. boxes—something she is looking forward to. “I’ve never done that before!” she said.
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