{"id":409019,"date":"2024-05-20T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=409019"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Island-style-Rota-rement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Island-style-Rota-rement\/","title":{"rendered":"Island-style Rota-rement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s not unusual for postmasters to receive messages of appreciation from their customers when they retire from the U.S. Postal Service. What is unusual is that they receive such a message during an official ceremony hosted by the mayor of the community that they served.<\/p>\n<p>But unusual is the usual when it comes to the career of recently retired Rota postmaster Tina Ramirez.<\/p>\n<p>Rota is a 32-square-mile western Pacific Island located in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Ramirez traveled more than 7,100 miles from her Kansas City home back in 2019 to assume the role of postmaster for the island.<\/p>\n<p>Upon learning of Ramirez\u2019s plans to retire and move back to Missouri, the mayor of Rota decided to honor her with a resolution. \u201cWe thank Tina for her accomplishments and valuable contributions to our island,\u201d said Rota Mayor Aubry Hocog. \u201cThis resolution recognizes her outstanding achievements and her 29 years of dedicated service to USPS, the last five spent as the postmaster of Rota.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was extremely honored to have the island do that for me,\u201d said Ramirez. \u201cWords cannot express my gratitude.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy five years as Rota postmaster was an awesome experience,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat I\u2019m going to miss the most are the people. Rota is a community like no other. The population of 2,000 people is an extended family that helps each other, that celebrates with each other during good times and grieves with each other during the bad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTransitioning from Kansas City to a tropical island was surreal and a bit of a culture shock. But the community took me in and made me one of their own. I made friends here that I will keep for a lifetime. In fact, several of them adopted me, unofficially, and treat me just like family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy friends here taught me how to fish in the coral reefs, how to dive in the crystal-clear ocean, how to retrieve natural sea salt from the cliffs and how to navigate my way through the jungle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got to live out an adventure straight out of a movie. I\u2019m so grateful for that!\u201d <strong><em>(PR)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/d145bfbbbc1ebafcb85ad121ccbf803b.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Rota Mayor Aubry Hocog and recently retired Rota postmaster Tina Ramirez.<\/p>\n<p>-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/40896ec60c7590203d7fa06cdfe114b3.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Rota Mayor Aubry Hocog and recently retired Rota postmaster Tina Ramirez surrounded by Ramirez\u2019s friends and adopted island family.<\/p>\n<p>-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s not unusual for postmasters to receive messages of appreciation from their customers when they&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}