Although veterans are commonly remembered and celebrated on Veterans Day, there’s a post office in Overland Park, Kan., that honors them all year long.
The Brookridge Post Office at 97th and Antioch Road has displayed photos of veterans from local families on its walls for years. The photos show members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard and go back to the Civil War.
"This is a good kind of picture to have in a post office," says retired postal worker Shirley Worley. "You know they used to have the wanted ones, years ago. They don’t do that anymore."
About nine years ago, Worley decided to celebrate veterans for a month each year. She started with pictures of her family, and then customers started giving her their photos.
"We decided to do the Veterans Day and make it something where we would honor the people in our community that we see all the time," says Worley.
She retired four years ago, after 39 years with the postal service. Now, her former co-worker, Vivian Pearson, is the point person for the project. The photos are up year-round, and the collection’s growing.
Each photo goes up with the name of the person and the dates and branch of their service. Pearson says last time she counted there were 153 pictures.
"I’m guessing there’s probably over 200 pictures up here now," she says.
Pearson's nephew, Marine Julian Butler, has a picture on the wall, along with one of her father, who served in Vietnam. Many veterans from Worley’s family are also on the wall, from her husband to a relative who fought in the Civil War.
One section celebrates local postal workers who have served in the military. Worley says she remembers many of the other people in the photographs as regulars at Brookridge.