January 18, 2013

First Native postmaster in Farmington

New postmaster is first American Indian, youngest so far in Farmington

By Jenny KaneSteve Begay became the youngest, and first American Indian postmaster in the Farmington Post Office's 134-year history on Friday.

Begay, originally from Shiprock, never thought he would become a postmaster, though he always has been a fan of the system, which he now will oversee.

"It's personal. You get a letter, you see the emotion in the letter," said Begay, who is 37 and a member of the Navajo tribe.
And:Upon return from his service overseas, Begay aspired to be either a firefighter or a police officer, and applied for both positions with the city of Tempe, Ariz. However, he also applied to another position with the city—one at the local post office.

"The post office was the first one to get back to me, so I took the job," Begay said.

Over the years, Begay worked at several other post offices before coming to the Farmington Post Office in 2005.
Comment:  The point isn't that Begay is the first Native postmaster in Farmington. The point is that Natives can be postmasters. It's one of those jobs you never associate with Natives.

For more unexpected Navajo jobs, see Navajo Engineer Receives Presidential Award and Navajo Architect Faces Sexism.

2 comments:

dmarks said...

Pet peeve of mine: poorly-done newspaper sites like this which nwhich hide where the actual place of the story is by carelessly leaving off information.

Seeing Navajo mentioned, I can guess the Four Corners area, but I had to google to find it was New Mexico.

I see this all the time.

Anonymous said...

This is the worst post office that constantly destroys my packages and are rude and act more like gangsters they should clean house as for me i will not stop until i get a meeting with the new DC post master general!!!