Postal world learns of

mail carrier’s fatal accident

Beaufort, Wednesday, May 20, 2009. National attention focused yesterday on The Beaufort Tribune’s news article about the death of US Postal Service mail carrier Charles Houck in a  vehicle accident as he made his delivery rounds in rural Hampton county. 

Postalnews.com, known as “the daily news digest of the postal world,” carried a link to our story  on its front page, resulting in mail carriers and their families nationwide visiting the Tribune’s web site to read the  entire article. Postalnews.com’s reader comments contained poignant expressions of appreciation for the way the Tribune handled the story. One reader said “It was sad but refreshing to read this first-person account of this sad story.”

The story was written by Susan Yoakum Woods, a Hampton county resident who works as part-time bookkeeper for The Beaufort Tribune. “Sue came to work Tuesday morning and told us about coming upon the accident just after it occurred Monday afternoon,” the Tribune’s editor George Trask said. “We immediately recognized its importance and asked Sue to write down her recollection,” he said. “We checked out the story and found that what Sue had written was factual and true, so we published it. We welcome citizen news reports because they are a real expression of  the community’s concern about local happenings that affect their lives, not some canned report from a news service.”

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