Stanley Halbert is known to many throughout Lawrence as simply “Stan the Mailman.”
The sight of a classic pith helmet bobbing above the crowd has long heralded the approach of this local Mr. Rogers: a pied piper of shop cats, baker extraordinaire and unrepentant sweets-snatcher.
Halbert, 57, hung up that pith after 30 years as a mail carrier, with more than 12 of those on the downtown route. He donned his United States Post Office getup to walk his route for the last time in late August.
The exact streets on his downtown route shifted many times in 12 years, but always included Massachusetts Street. Halbert witnessed changing tides of business and carried residents through COVID-19, the worst time of his career.
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“I think the mail is important,” he said. “It’s a more personal, local touch. You know, your mailman’s coming to your door.”
Downtown businesses and employees have showered Halbert with gifts since he announced his retirement. He said Manda Barker, an employee of Wonder Fair and the Raven Book Store, took the news particularly hard.
“In the time that Stan has been the main mail carrier for downtown Lawrence, he has become something very precious to all of us,” Barker wrote in a message. “He does more than deliver mail. He has brought us good news and sad news, he has been a glue that keeps stores in touch with each other and in support of each other, he has gotten to know workers on a personal level.”
A lettered legacy
Not many people know that Halbert is a fourth-generation letter carrier.
Halbert’s paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were both mailmen. His mother, Chris Halbert, carried mail in Lawrence for about two decades — he even got to work alongside her for a few years.
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The Halbert family moved to Lawrence in the latter half of the 1970s, the summer before his third grade year. Halbert graduated from Lawrence High School and took a cleaning job with Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas and later, the Kansas Department of Transportation.
He ultimately spotted an ad in the paper for jobs with the post office, and he signed up to take a letter carrier test.
“At the time, we went to Kansas City to this big hall. It’s like taking an SAT,” he said. “We sat in a room with 1,000 people.”
Halbert was always drawn to numbers and took some undergraduate math classes while he worked at Allen Fieldhouse. The USPS test tickled that left side of his brain, as different sections asked people to spot differences between addresses, come up with numbers in a sequence, and memorize five-by-five grids.
Halbert walked away with an 88% on that test and his first assignment at a USPS office for Prairie Village and Mission Hills in 1996. He loved the neighborhoods but disliked the commute.
“I told people if I could teleport, I would have stayed there,” Halbert said.
As it stood, he requested a transfer as soon as possible, landing him in Lawrence. Halbert never left the main Lawrence office once he was reassigned.
He got his first official route in 2000 and has worked five total routes in town, plus a tour as a substitute. Substitutes are mail carriers who rotate through five routes each week, filling in for the usual carrier on their days off.
Halbert’s been privy to decades of change in Lawrence and at the USPS.
He experienced the post office move away from aluminum vehicles without air conditioning and can point to countless spots on Mass Street and tell you what has taken root there over the years.
”You cannot ever expect to stop getting mail,” he said. “I actually got a piece of mail for the King of Jeans, which I don’t think has been in Lawrence since the ‘80s.”
Halbert, like many in the profession, learned how to handle the high turnover of a college town, how to try and stave off dog attacks, and how to navigate weather extremes.
Challenges aside, Halbert loved his work through and through.
“It’s been fun,” he said. “There are always hard days. There are difficult days. The worst days for me were always rainy days.”
But those rain clouds still brought out Halbert’s famous postal cape.
“He has the kindest smile and the best disposition, and if you ask him nicely on a rainy day, he will whip his USPS cape around like a matador,” Barker said.
Please don’t feed the mailman
Halbert said his love of sweets is what broke the ice after he landed the downtown route.
“I’ve never been shy about asking for food,” he said. “People downtown are very aware of that, and so I get food a lot.”
Halbert’s wife, Marian Weeks, toyed with the idea of making him a shirt that read “Please don’t feed the mailman.”
Once downtown started offering him treats, he responded in kind.
Halbert memorized downtown birthdays and significant dates over the years so he could celebrate them with sugary sundries. He partially credits himself with the popularization of Pi Day downtown and had a habit of baking goodbye presents for the workers who left the street and “left him.”
“My vice is chocolate,” Halbert said. “I don’t drink coffee. I don’t drink tea. I don’t drink alcohol. It’s just, like, chocolate.”
Halbert will always be known at WheatFields, one of his favorite stops, for his second great culinary love: bread.
“One of my sayings is, ‘I could live off of bread if I could live off of bread,’” Halbert said.
During a Monday interview, Siona Baker, a WheatFields employee, slipped Halbert a bag of his favorite: the four cheese and herb focaccia.
“You’re not just our mailman; you are a friend,” Baker said to him.
Lasting relationships (with shop cats)
Halbert is open to what retirement holds for him — after he catches up on copious amounts of sleep and repair projects around the house. He hopes to take more trips with Weeks to spot exciting wildlife and see more national parks.
He’ll also keep his seat as the secretary-treasurer of his local union, Branch 104 of the National Association of Letter Carriers. He started his stint in 2012, putting his love of numbers to good use.
But unlike the many downtown folks who “left him,” Halbert isn’t abandoning some of his favorite streets (and sweets) in Lawrence. He’ll need to keep visiting the shop cats who have become his impromptu pets over the years.
“There’s not a single cat downtown that likes being held, and it’s really irritating,” Halbert said.
That doesn’t stop him from trying. He’s had a few successful bouts with Dave at Wonder Fair.
“Dave has been a wonderful little relationship because he doesn’t like anybody, including me,” Halbert said.
Riann Ershadi, an employee of Ladybird Diner and Wonder Fair, happened to sit at a WheatFields table next to Halbert on Monday. She said it’s been fun to see all of the different types of relationships he’s forged over the years.
“It’s really been an honor to be a mailman to all these people. It really has been,” Halbert said. “I really liked it, and I don’t live far away, so I get to come back down and visit these people.”
Fun facts about Stanley Halbert
• Favorite stamps: Halbert is partial to 2017’s heat-activated Total Eclipse of the Sun stamp, followed by the scratch-and-sniff Frozen Treat stamps with popsicle designs.
• Favorite letters: While it was nearly impossible to choose a favorite letter, Halbert likes the work in The Graceful Envelope contest.
• Favorite murder mystery: Halbert and Weeks are avid fans of murder mystery shows, and Halbert has a list of his top picks, organized from lightest to darkest. A few recommendations include “Inspector Morse,” “Sherlock,” “Endeavor,” “Deadwater Fell,” “The Brokenwood Mysteries,” “Death in Paradise” and the “Poirot” TV series featuring David Suchet.
• A random encounter: Halbert met George Brett while delivering his mail.
• Above and beyond the call of duty: Halbert called Weeks to rescue two domestic rabbits, baby squirrels and a nighthawk struggling to lay eggs, all of which he encountered on his route. After hours, they rescued a concussed woodchuck.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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