In between Albany and Monticello, lies a small community that has about everything it needs to allow it to keep it’s long-time identity.

It has a small grocery/country store and it has its own post office.

The post office, located in Alpha, KY, has been in full operation for a very long time and it continues to provide the residents in the area with a place to get their mail, send items through the mail, and is somewhat a small social gathering/meeting place.

The small white frame building that serves as the Alpha 42603 Post Office is less than a mile across the Clinton and Wayne County boundry, on the Old Happy Top Road, and it serves a host of Alpha residents from both counties.

Laurel Dewitt, Officer In Charge of the Alpha Post Office, said she hasn’t received word from the postal service that the post office will be closed, however it was on the list of 130 other post offices in Kentucky that will be up for review.

“This post office has around 50 or 60 boxes and people rely on this post office to get their mail,” Dewitt said. “I haven’t heard official word yet that it will be closing.”

Dewitt is a one person army at the Alpha Post Office. She is in charge of sorting mail and keeping the office open for four hours per day, from 8:15 to 12:15 Monday through Saturday.

“We can do everything a normal post office can do except passports,” Dewitt said. “We get overnight packages, we have one customer who sends out ebay boxes everyday.”

Dewitt has worked at the post office in Alpha for the past three and a half years. She said she feels a strong tie to the little place and really hopes that it’s not closed down.

“People who have boxes here don’t want to drive 10 to 15 minutes to Monticello or Albany,” Dewitt said. “They want to have the security of knowing their post office boxes are here.”

Joyce Burchett, who lives in the area close to the post office, said it would take a long time for her to have to drive to Monticello.

“It takes about two minutes to drive here now,” Burchett said. “We don’t want this place to close. I think we need to get a petition up so they won’t close it down.”

One local resident, who lives next to the Alpha Post Office, even asked Dewitt if she would help hang a bird feeder after her shift was over. Dewitt promptly agreed to help.

Although closing the post office in the Alpha Community would be bad enough, residents in the community have a very close relationship to Dewitt and none of them want to see her leave.

“She’s just got such a great personality and everyone around here just thinks the world of her,” Barry Ragan, another resident of Alpha, said. “It’s hard to find someone with a great personality like she has. It would be a big blow to the community if we lost this post office.”

Ragan lives in a mobile home immediately behind the Alpha Post Office, and he noted just how the community felt a bond not only with the post office and the service it provides to community residents, but also with Dewitt, the OIC.

“This place is badly needed in this community and Laurel has worked hard to build up the business for the post office,” Ragan said. “Since she’s been here, I’d say she has tripled the amount of business – I’d say there are only a hand full of boxes in there that aren’t rented out.”

Ragan has some first-hand knowledge of the workings of the Alpha Post Office himself. In addition to living within a few feet of the building, his mother, Bonnie Ragan, was the Postmaster at Alpha for about 20 years.

Prior to that, his grandmother, Thelma Ragan, who currently owns the building housed by the Alpha Post Office and leases it to the United States Postal Service, was the Postmaster at Alpha prior to her daughter taking the position.

Thelma Ragan served as postmaster for about 40 years according to her grandson adding that his grandmother was Postmaster of Alpha when the Post Office was located at the Zula location prior to it being relocated to its present location on the Old Happy Top Road.

“I can’t see how they could close this place down. All I have is a water bill and an electric bill. My water bill was like $15 and the electric bill was only $33, so there is not much going out of this office other than my salary.”

One reason Dewitt said people in the community want to keep the office open is because residents of the community don’t want to put mailboxes up in their yard.

“They know their mail is secure here. They don’t want to put mailboxes up in their yards and take the chance of someone coming along and getting their mail,” Dewitt said. “They like coming here and getting it.”

In an article published last week in the Lexington Herald-Leader, approximately 3,653 post offices across the nation will be under review, but this doesn’t mean the postal service will close all of them down.

The article also said the postal service is looking at moving some post offices to local stores and calling them Village Post Offices. Village Post Offices will offer postal services in local stores, libraries or government offices.

The United States Postal Service currently operates 31,871 retail outlets across the United States, which is down from 38,000, 10 years ago. The agency lost around $8 billion last year because of the recession while advertisers had a decline in advertising mail.

Back in January, the post office announced it was reviewing 1,400 offices for closing and so far, only 280 have been shut down. Of those 1,400 offices, 620 are still in the review process and 300 will move to the new review list.

“I like it here,” Dewitt said. “The people are good, the job is good … it really helps the community.”