The Pony Man and the Pulse of Wylie
How Steve Hodges’ morning mail route became a front-row seat to the heart of the district
There is a rhythm to a school district in the morning.
Doors click open. Radios crackle. Phones ring before the coffee has had a fair chance. A parent comes in with a forgotten lunchbox. A teacher hurries by with papers in one hand and a breakfast taco in the other. Somewhere, someone is looking for cardstock, keys, a student, a check, or all of the above.
And then Steve Hodges walks in with the mail.
Around Wylie ISD, Steve is known by a few titles. Retired educator. Former principal. Substitute assistant principal. Husband. Dad. Pop.
But to many front offices, he is simply the pony mail driver - the man who carries envelopes, packages, paperwork, checks, and, as his granddaughter Collins says, “chit-chat” from one campus to the next.
Collins may be young, but she may have described the job better than anyone.
“It’s where he gets his chit-chat,” she said.
(L-R: Collins, Steve Hodges, Cinnamon Thompson)
Steve agrees.
“I thought that was pretty genius of Collins,” he said. “Because it is. When you’re on a routine and the office staff doesn’t change that much, you kind of get to know people.”
The pony mail route is not flashy. There are no stage lights, no halftime introductions, no applause when the mail gets from one campus to another. But ride with Steve for one morning, and you quickly realize the route is a moving thread that ties the district together.
At each stop, he knows who gets the biggest stacks. He knows which offices are busiest. He knows where the candy jar is. He knows which campus has popcorn on Fridays. He knows who might need a quick laugh and who is too busy for anything more than a wave and a “thank you.”
He also knows when an envelope is addressed only to “Admin,” which turns him briefly into what the office jokingly calls “Detective Hodges.”
“So dress your envelopes properly,” he said, with the grin of a man who has sorted more mystery mail than he probably cares to count.
The job started a few years ago, when Steve walked into Wylie East Elementary to pick up Collins. At the time, the district needed someone for pony mail. Steve had already told his daughter, Cinnamon Thompson, that if the job ever opened up, he wanted it.
He did not want to direct traffic. He had already done plenty of that in his career.
But the pony route? That was different.
“I would love to be the pony guy,” he remembered saying.
Not long after, Superintendent Joey Light called.
“Steve, can you start tomorrow?”
Steve’s response was simple.
“Can I go talk to Mary first?”
Mary is Steve’s wife, a retired educator from Abilene ISD. Education has never just been Steve’s career. It has been part of the family table, the family calendar, and the family conversation. Steve and Mary raised children who grew up hearing school stories at supper, the kind of stories educators understand because the work follows you home whether you mean for it to or not.
Their daughter Cinnamon became a school counselor and now serves at Wylie East Elementary. Their son Casey is principal at Clyde High School. Their son Colby is a lawyer in Houston. Even outside the classroom, the family’s roots in public education run deep.
Steve spent 27 years in education before retiring in 2015. Before that, he spent 10 years with West Texas Utilities, where part of his work included coordinating an electrical safety program that went into fourth-grade classrooms across a large service area.
Looking back, he can see how even that job was preparing him for school leadership.
He learned how to work with people. How to coordinate. How to build trust. How to walk into a school and notice what most people might miss.
And one thing he noticed then is something he still believes now.
“The front offices of schools are so important,” Steve said. “You can judge a campus by walking into the front office.”
He said if an office feels negative, the school often feels that way too. But if an office is upbeat and friendly, that spirit usually carries through the building.
“The pulse of the front office is the pulse of the school,” he said.
That might be the heart of this story.
Steve’s pony route gives him a rare view of Wylie ISD. He sees the district not from one office, one classroom, or one campus, but from all of them. He sees the high school moving fast with the energy of a place where something is always happening. He sees junior high offices with the special kind of adrenaline only junior high can produce. He sees elementary offices juggling tears, Band-Aids, visitors, paperwork, and smiles, sometimes all before 9 a.m.
And he sees people.
That is Steve’s gift.
Cinnamon said her dad has “a special knack of connecting with people, no matter who they are.”
“Whether it’s a kiddo that’s misbehaving, a kiddo that behaves all the time, young or old, he treats them all the same with kindness and respect,” she said. “His servant leader heart just shines through.”
For Cinnamon, having her dad working in the same district has been something she never expected.
“It’s been so special for us to be Wylie Bulldogs together,” she said. “My office looks out the front driveway, and occasionally I will see him drive up in his pony car. Sometimes if I’m there, I get to go give him a hug real quick, and I don’t take that for granted at all.”
Years ago, when Cinnamon was teaching in Plano, she and her dad talked every morning on her drive to school. They talked life. They talked school. They probably solved a few world problems before the first bell.
Now, instead of a phone call from miles away, she sometimes gets to see him pull up outside her own campus.
“I never thought in a million years that we would ever work in the same school district,” Cinnamon said.
That shared Wylie connection has become even sweeter because of Collins, Steve’s granddaughter and a Wylie second grader.
Most mornings, Steve’s route brings him near the playground around the time Collins is outside. She knows to watch for him by the fence. Sometimes she stands where he can see her, waiting for the pony car to roll up.
Steve pulls over, rolls down the window, and talks to her for a minute.
To anyone else, it might look like a small moment. A quick wave. A grandfather saying hello before heading to the next campus.
But in the middle of a busy school day, it is the kind of ordinary blessing that does not feel ordinary at all.
Collins said when she sees Pop deliver the mail, she tells him she loves him. She also said he is “the best grandpa ever” and that he is good at “doing his job and stuff like that.”
That last part might be the finest performance review a grandfather can receive.
Steve’s grandfather perspective has also shaped the way he has served this year as a substitute assistant principal at Wylie West Elementary. After years as a teacher and principal, he now sees students through the eyes of someone with five elementary-aged granddaughters.
“When I became a parent, I became a better teacher,” Steve said. “Now as a grandparent, and I’m dealing with these little guys at West Elementary, I look at it more from a grandparent standpoint. I think it makes you more sympathetic.”
Sometimes that means discipline does not begin with a stern lecture. Sometimes it begins with sitting down and talking things out. Sometimes it sounds more like a grandfather than an administrator.
And sometimes, it includes ice cream.
At West Elementary, Steve started what became known as the Ice Cream Club for a few students working toward better behavior. On Friday mornings, he checks with teachers. Thumbs up means ice cream later in the day.
(West Elementary Staff with Steve Hodges)
The students work for it.
Steve also admits, with the honesty of a man who knows the reader is already wondering, that he does eat ice cream too.
“It’s not just a reason for you to get ice cream?” he was asked.
“No,” Steve said. Then he paused. “But I do eat ice cream.”
That is part of Steve’s charm. He is steady and thoughtful, but he is also quick with a smile. He can talk about school safety, standardized testing, leadership, and the changing needs of students, and then turn around and laugh about popcorn, candy, and a Far Side calendar.
He can walk into a front office and be greeted like family.
At one stop, staff members made sure he had a Coke. At another, there was popcorn. Somewhere else, there was candy. The pony route may move mail, but it also seems to collect snacks.
And stories.
There was the moment he walked into an office and mentioned that Wylie ISD HR Coordinator Brittany Davis had once been in his fifth-grade science class at Jackson Elementary. A few stops later, there was Officer Brown, who knew Steve not as the pony mail driver or assistant principal, but as the dad of his childhood friend, Casey. There are moments like that all over Steve’s route. He has been in education long enough, and in Abilene long enough, that the past often walks right up to the counter and says hello.
“Steve knows everybody,” someone said during the route.
That may not be completely true, but it feels close.
Steve is not serving schools because he needs something to do. He is doing it because, as he puts it, once education is in your blood, it does not go away.
“Once it’s in your blood, it’s in your blood,” he said. “It’s just part of you, and it never goes away.”
The pony mail job lets him stay connected to the school world he loves without carrying the full weight of school administration every day. He is still part of the rhythm. Still part of the hallway. Still part of the people.
“I like the connection with the people,” Steve said. “This is just fun for me to get out and do this. It gets me up in the morning. It gets me going.”
That connection has meant even more this year as Steve helped at West Elementary. He praised the staff there for their dedication and support, saying they reminded him of the best faculties he worked with during his career.
“I’m ready for school to be out,” he said with a laugh, “I’m ready to go back to being retired. But I’m really going to miss this.”
That is the funny thing about retirement for educators. The calendar may say you are done, but the heart often disagrees.
Steve still sees the challenges schools face. He sees how education has changed since he first started teaching in 1978. School security is different. Student needs are different. Families are different. Testing pressure is different.
(Steve as Assistant Principal after Pony Mail)
But some things, he said, have not changed.
Kids are still kids.
Teachers still need support.
Front offices still set the tone.
And one caring adult can still make a difference.
Steve carries with him advice he received early in administration: When the day feels hard and it seems like everything is going wrong, remember that most students are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. Do not let the difficult moments steal the bigger picture.
That kind of perspective is earned. It comes from decades in classrooms, offices, cafeterias, car lines, and conversations with parents. It comes from raising a family in education. It comes from watching your daughter become an educator, then watching your granddaughter wave at you from a Wylie playground.
It comes from a life spent showing up.
Cinnamon described her dad as “calm, level headed, full of wisdom, and thoughtful.”
Then she added something more personal.
“I just feel really blessed to be his daughter,” she said. “He’s gotten to touch a lot of lives over the course of his career, and I’m so proud of him.”
That pride is easy to understand after one morning on the pony route.
Because somewhere between the stacks of envelopes and the office snacks, between the playground wave and the ice cream club, between the quick jokes and the quiet wisdom, Steve Hodges is still doing what great educators do.
He is noticing people.
He is encouraging people.
He is making small moments matter.
And in a district as big and busy as Wylie ISD, that kind of steady presence means more than any piece of mail he delivers.
As the school year closes, Steve’s role will shift again. He will not continue serving as a substitute assistant principal next year, but he will keep making his pony mail rounds for the 2026-27 school year. That means Wylie front offices will still hear the familiar arrival of the pony man.
The pony run may be Steve's “chit-chat job,” but it is also something more.
It is a daily reminder that schools are held together not just by schedules, systems, and buildings, but by people who know each other, care for each other, and keep showing up.
And when Steve Hodges walks into a Wylie front office with mail in hand and a story ready to go, you can feel it.
The heartbeat is strong.
It’s great to be a Wylie Bulldog.
(Steve shows his collection of vintage lunchboxes he has collected on display in his office)
