The GroupWise e-mail system is provided by The Utah State Office of Education and The State of Utah as a medium to allow communication for government related business.
Mail is processed as it comes in.
If you send a message to everyone in the agency, and then retract it, the server must place the message in each mail box and then go and take it back out again. The rest of the mail in the system must wait for this process to be completed before it will deliver other mail. Because this individual was superstitious, the letter was sent to everyone in the state. This meant that all pending mail had to wait for the chain letter to be delivered. It is a business communications system - Personal issues should not be allowed to clog up the system.