Letters by the thousands travel to tiny town

VALENTINE Spanning less than half of one square mile and consisting of just around 200 people, Valentine, Texas, is, on most occasions, a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of town.

But drive through the town’s main road on Highway 90, and you’ll pass by a building known for spreading love all around the world.

Every year since 1983, the town’s post office has been famous worldwide for receiving thousands upon thousands of letters to be sent off with the official “Valentine, Texas” postmark just in time for Valentine’s Day.

“I was busy at Christmas but not like Valentine’s Day, and that’s truly amazing isn’t it?” Valentine Postmaster Maria Carrasco said.

In fact, Carrasco begins receiving Valentine’s Day mail beginning in December.

Most cards are sent pre-stamped inside a larger envelope addressed to the Valentine Postmaster.

Carrasco, recognized as the “cupid” of Valentine by Gov. Rick Perry, begins opening the packages on Feb. 1 and hand stamps the inner envelopes with a special “cachet” stamp designed this year by Latham Garnsey, a freshman at Valentine Independent School District.

If Carrasco sends the letters before Feb. 14, she stamps the “cachet” on the side of the outgoing envelope and uses the regular Valentine postmark to cancel out the postage. But from Feb. 14 to March 14, the student-designed stamp is used as the official Valentine postmark to cancel out postage.

Each envelope is handled with care by Carrasco, who sifts through piles of packages for most hours of the work days leading up to Feb. 14 and makes sure each outgoing letter has enough stamps to be sent off. Some packages come with mailing guidelines or a simple “thank you” note to the postmaster, all of which Carrasco reads through carefully.

For Carrasco, who has worked 21 years as Valentine’s postmaster, the time taken to sift and stamp Valentine’s Day mail is an honor and one that helped her through the hardest of heartaches.

“I went through a very traumatic thing in my life 12 years ago, and during the healing time I lost my husband. The first couple of years when this was happening, I asked myself, ‘What was I doing here?’ ” Carrasco recalled.

“(But) the letters mean the true love that people have for each other,” Carrasco continued. “And in that essence, that true love is God, and I’m spreading the essence of God’s love. It’s an honor for me.”

And the postmark is a unique surprise to give to loved ones, said Sal Yanez, a Texas Department of Transportation employee who was passing by Valentine to work in Presidio.

Yanez heard of the postmark tradition from a coworker and stopped by the post office Wednesday afternoon to buy a Valentine for his wife.

“I figured, ‘Why not just make a pit stop?’ ” Yanez said. “To me, it’s unique.”

But looming over Valentine’s special tradition and claim to fame is the possible closure of the post office.

Last July, the United States Postal Service released a list of nearly 3,700 potential post office closures, Valentine among them, to counteract the Postal Service’s steep financial losses. In its first three months of the 2012 fiscal year between Oct. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2011, the Postal Service suffered a $3.3 billion net loss, according to its website.

Although post office closures have been put on hold until May 15, Stephen Seewoester of USPS Corporate Communications said, many Valentine residents are already preparing themselves for the possible closure of their post office.

During a recent city council meeting, Valentine Mayor Jesus Calderon said the Valentine tradition might be moved next year to neighboring Van Horn, some 40 miles north, just so Valentine mailings could continue.

Calderon said he is working to prevent the post office closure, working with state Rep. Pete Gallego and starting a petition in hopes to reverse the USPS decision.

“This (Valentine’s Day) business has put Valentine on the map. Tourists come by here all the time, wanting to mail letters from Valentine, people all over the world,” Calderon said. “It’s not going to be the same.”

How to get a Valentine postmark

• Buy a Valentine’s Day card and address and apply postage on the card as you normally would.
• Avoid small envelopes, red envelopes or slick envelopes, so the “Valentine, Texas” postmark shows up well.
• Place the envelope inside a slightly larger envelope. If you have instructions for the postmaster, also place that inside the larger envelope.
• Address the larger envelope to Postmaster, Valentine Re-mailing, Valentine, TX 79854.

@OAcitylife