Avalon Post Office Ribbon-Cutting Memorialized
From left, Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi, Don Richardson, Wilda Richardson, Dave Wiggins and Avalon Postmaster Melissa Lomax at the ceremony in the post office lobby.
Avalon Post Office held a special ceremony at its branch on July 16 to commemorate the building’s 1960 ribbon-cutting with a memorial plaque. Mayor Martin Pagliughi, Postmaster Melissa Lomax and the post office’s sales and service associate Dave Wiggins hung the plaque, provided by Brian Austin of San Diego, in the post office lobby. Austin had the plaque created in memory of his mother, Nancy Warren, who in her role as Miss Avalon assisted in the July 16, 1960 ribbon-cutting.
Austin was unable to attend the ceremony. Nancy’s sister, Wilda Richardson, and her nephew, Don Richardson, both of Avalon, participated on the family’s behalf.
The plaque features a photo from the 1960 ribbon-cutting, with Warren, Postmaster Elmer Stanton Holmes Jr. and Mayor Donald G. Everingham. It was hung in the lobby directly above the 1960 United States Post Office plaque that lists Dwight D. Eisenhower as the president of the United States and Arthur E. Summerfield as postmaster general at that time. Pagliughi mentioned that this was the sixth post office building in the Borough of Avalon since 1888.
“On behalf of the Avalon Post Office, we are truly humbled by Brian’s generosity in providing a beautiful memorial plaque of his mother’s participation back on July 16, 1960, in the official ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Avalon post office’s newest location, where it still proudly operates from today,” Lomax said. “It is an honor to have had Mrs. Richardson and her son Don here on behalf of Brian and his mom, as we honored the 58th Anniversary of the current location of the Avalon Post Office.”
