According to historian and filmmaker Derek Boyd Hankerson, if the rural post office was the unofficial city hall, its postmaster was the town s unofficial mayor. In a lot of these small towns, the postmaster would be the only representative of the federal government people would ever see, Hankerson said.
Hankerson is well-acquanted with the in and outs of government. In addition to making films, he has worked for Republican lawmakers and politicians since he was 18; he worked on the campaign staff of both Bush presidents and served as former President Donald Trump s Northeast Florida campaign regional director in 2016.
A long line of service