NEW FAIRFIELD POSTMASTER Wendy Mensch Martin is a 1994 graduate of Fairfield high school and had been serving as officer in charge at the Buffalo Post Office. Fairfield Post Office came under supervision of a former Fairfield resident, Wendy Mensch Martin, this week when she took over duties as postmaster.

Mrs. Martin, 33, took over from officer in charge Greg Kazmierczak who has managed the facility since the retirement of Postmaster Paul Johnson earlier this year.

"I never thought I would be in this office," the new Fairfield postmaster says. "I like coming home, being back where I started."

Mrs. Martin was serving as officer in charge at Buffalo since October 2008 when the Fairfield opening came up.

"It's bittersweet, leaving Buffalo. It's a really good office, but so is the Fairfield office," the 33- year-old says.

The postmaster is a 1994 graduate of Fairfield high school and attended Navarro College and Tarleton State University, majoring in education, until deciding to take a semester off from studies.

During that semester off, she took the United States Postal Service examination and was hired as a part-time city carrier in Teague, then transferred to clerk.

"It was a good job and Postmaster Novle Watkins started training me. He was a very good mentor and kind of pushed me," Mrs. Martin says.

She left the Teague Post Office to serve as officer in charge at Streetman, was post master in Donie, went to Jewett as officer in charge and then postmaster before transferring to Buffalo.

Mrs. Martin reports that one of the first phone calls she made when notified she was getting the Fairfield position was to Watkins, who is retired in Grapeland.

The new postmaster says that she has some big shoes to fill following Johnson in the Fairfield job, noting that area post masters would call him if they had questions about operations.

"He was an awesome post master," she declares.

The Fairfield Post Office is staffed by three clerks, four rural route carriers, one city route carrier and substitutes for the routes.

Mrs. Martin spent last week wrapping up her duties in Buffalo, and spending some time in Fairfield getting accustomed to her new office.

An official swearing in ceremony will be scheduled later.

"I don't know that I'll move on from here," Mrs. Martin says. "I may end up retiring here."

The post master is the daughter of Artie and Carol Mensch of Teague.

She and her husband, Lance, who is employed with Flexsource, are parents of an 8-year-old son, Garrett, who is a third grade student in Teague.