Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Hendrickson, Vine, Schilling, Cook, Hansen
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 8/03/2016
Retirement for Hendrickson (After 25 Years - 29 July 2016)
Retirement for Hendrickson after 25 Years
United States Postal employee Randy Hendrickson celebrates his 25 years with postal service the early morning of July 29. His “postal family” presented Henrickson with a decorative plaque commemorating his dedicated service the past 25 years, 5 months, and 10 days. That converts to 305 months, 9, 284 days, 13,368,960 minutes or 802,137,600 seconds. A nice potluck was served while postal employees shared fond memories, stories and tears. “Technically, he’s irreplaceable,” Postmaster Lisa Schilling shared. (Nancy Curtin/Clark County Press)
By Nancy Curtin
Emotions were plentiful the early morning of July 29, as the Neillsville Post Office celebrated Randy Hendrickson’s 25 years of service and inevitably his retirement.
His postal family commemorated his 25 years, 5 months and 10 days of service with a decorative “plaque” and a brunch-style potluck.
Henrickson started part-time in Loyal as a window clerk. After about a year, Hendrickson transferred to the Neillsville location as a window clerk. Nearly a year after that, he was promoted as an in-town city carrier for Route 2.
Hendrickson said he has no immediate plans other than to enjoy spending time with his wife Sharon (Vine) and family and doing what he wants to do.
He said he is looking forward to traveling to Las Vegas for a wedding in October and doing some hunting and fishing. “While I’m excited about my future, I’m not too thrilled about the inevitable to-do list,” chuckled Hendrickson.
“The best part of this whole experience is meeting my wife over 20 years ago while working one day,” he said. “She worked at the Clark County Courthouse then, and we’ve now been married for almost 21 years.”
“There may even be the possibility of us becoming snowbirds in the future,” Hendrickson laughed.
Hendrickson reminisced how he has met many interesting people, built solid friendships and working with his postal family.
He said his work family has been real fun to work with over the years. They’ve been known to laugh a lot throughout the day, and they’re all wonderful people,” he said.
The biggest change he has experienced over the past 25 years in the use of scanners for tracking purposes and having to track nearly every parcel and package.
“We will miss him so much,” Postmaster Lisa Schilling said. “He’s the type of person that others tend to gravitate towards. It’s nearly impossible not to like him because he is such an amazing person.”
Schillings fondest memory will be Hendrickson saying, “You should have seen me in my younger years, as I was a bit of a troublemaker back then.”
Mark Cook, a 20-plus year veteran with the post office, will be taking over Hendrickson’s route. Lisa Hansen, who was recently hired, will act as a floater, filling in wherever she is needed.
