The Oldest Federal Employee?

Our piece on Virginia Saunders, the 82 year old woman who had spent 77% of her years working at the Government Printing Office, triggered this response from another reader:

I work somewhere in the sprawling bowels of the Justice Department here in DC. A few years ago, we celebrated the 85th birthday of a colleague, and they are still manning their post today. Needless to say, it was a pretty common site to see our tech folks helping this individual out with basic email and computer needs.

This got me wondering who the oldest federal employees are, and a quick Google showed that this wasn't all that original of a question. The Volokh Conspiracy aired this question back in 2006, in which it was speculated that some of the more senior Judges in federal service would be the oldest employees. There were many competitors for the crown, but it seems that as of 2006, Harold "Bruno" Mangum was the oldest/longest-serving federal employee. Despite the one commenter who averred that the woman who helped him at the post office had to be "at least 100."

According to Federal News Radio, Mangum died in March of 2008, at which time he was hailed as the longest serving federal employee, having served for 71 YEARS as a clerk at the Department of Agriculture in Raleigh, NC. Mangum began working for the government during FDR's first term in office, and had accrued 6,000 hours of unused sick leave over the course of his career. That's three years of sick leave. Mangum reported to a USDA newsletter in 2006 that the last movie he had seen was "The Sound of Music," in 1965.

So, do any of my readers have some contenders for oldest current employee?

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