May 2016 - Oklahoma Heritage Bank

Volume 8, Issue 11
May 2016
The Wrangler Newsletter
Why Do We Want You to
“Won’t You Be Compare Your CDs with
OHB’s CDs?
My Neighbor”
OHB-Roff Will Move
Beyond the Curve
OHB
Certificate of Deposits
Show us your bank
CDs and we won’t just
match the interest rate
you have been earning
at the other banks . . .
OHB will beat the
rate! Or I will buy you
lunch. I’m serious!
We have always
been a customer-first
and customer-friendly
bank, extending OHB’s
brand one person at a time. OHB has rightfully earned
its reputation, being Roff’s bank nearly 40 years, Byng’s
bank nearly 30 years, Stratford’s bank nearly 20 years,
and now we have been growing in Ada (North Hills
Shopping Center) nearly 2 years.
Give me a call (my cellphone is 580-759-6508) and
let’s visit about how OHB can begin paying you more
interest on your CDs than you have been receiving at
other banks. OHB wants to earn your banking business,
just as it has been doing for many thousands of friends
and neighbors for nearly 40 years.
By Billy Norton, VP/Chief Credit Officer
Says OHB
If you were a child or parent or
grandparent any time between
1968 and 2001, you surely
watched the public television
show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,
hosted by the beloved Fred
Rogers. You will no doubt recall
the theme song that always began
the 895 shows, "Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” written
and sung by Fred Rogers, with its opening verse:
It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Mr. Rogers’ career in television is best known for his
childrens’ programming where he was seen by children (and adults) as a kind friend who was earnestly
interested in each viewer. Mr. Rogers projected his
stage persona with a slow-talking, feelings-endorsing
calmness that was reassuring to the kids. He was
almost universally loved and admired. Perhaps his
most discerning quote is “One of the greatest gifts you
can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. I also
believe that kids can spot a phony a mile away.”
There is much in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
television show that could symbolize OHB’s success.
He might even have explained OHB’s success as he
explained success in his well known quote.
“There are three ways to ultimate success:
The first way is to be kind.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind.”
OHB’s move into the Ada neighborhood with its
fourth banking location might also be seen through the
prism of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Since the
August, 2014 opening, the Ada community has
become a real friend and neighbor for all of the staff,
officers, and Directors of OHB.
Mr. Rogers could even be our role model as
the staff, officers, and Directors of OHB have
developed personal relationships throughout our
communities during the nearly 40 years OHB has been
in business. Or just as Mr. Rogers might have said to
OHB’s neighbors:
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please,
Won't you please?
Please won't you be my neighbor?
R. Darryl Fisher, MD
Chief Executive Officer and
Chairman of the Board
RRRRRRRRRR
Heard in the Bank
“We believe OHB’s certificate of deposit (CD)
interest rates will earn you and your family more
money. Give us the chance to show you how
competitive OHB can be on CD interest rates.”
Dustin Riddle, President/COO
RRRRRRRRRR
VERY BEST
Interest Rates
Call 580.235.0205
Phyllis Danley joins OHB as
Financial Services Administrator
Phyllis Danley (c.) is welcomed to OHB as the Financial Services
Administrator by Chairman of the Board/CEO Darryl Fisher (r.) and
OHB President/CEO Dustin Riddle. Danley’s responsibilities will
include recruiting new banking relationships and developing marketing concepts to promote continued growth of the bank at all four
OHB locations (Roff, Byng, Stratford, and Ada).
OHB is pleased to announce that Phyllis Danley will
join the bank as its Financial Services Administrator on
June 1. She will be responsible for the recruitment of new
banking relationships, development of marketing concepts
to promote growth of the bank, and other activities that will
promote the spirit, philosophy, dedication, and general
direction of OHB.
Dr. Darryl Fisher, CEO and Chairman of the Board,
states, “Ms. Danley will bring a blend of relationshipbuilding skills, organizational abilities, and leadership
talent to OHB – all of us are very pleased with her decision
to become part of our team.”
Ms. Danley served as the Executive Director of the
East Central University Foundation from 2009 to 2016,
and was the office manager and CEO of the East Central
Credit Union from 1982 until 2009. She has served on the
boards of the Oklahoma Heritage Bank, Ada Arts and
Heritage Center, ECU Foundation, Adult Day Care Center,
Ada Kiwanis Club, Habitat for Humanity, and Ada
Regional Way. She is an accomplished pianist, and currently serves as accompanist at First United Methodist
Church in Ada and East Side Christian Church in Tulsa.
She is the daughter of the late Dr. James Danley and
the late Wanita Danley-Plunk, both of whom were wellknown professors at East Central University. Her sons,
Andy Taylor and Evan Taylor and wife Deanna, live in
Tulsa, along with grandchildren Jessie, Dexter, and Ripley.
“This is a great opportunity, and I’m hopeful that my
experience and skills will be of benefit to OHB. Relationships are the key to growth in this industry, and I look
forward to working with current and future bank customers
in providing services to fit their needs,” says Ms. Danley.
Lifelong Roff resident Joe Morrow (r.) stands with OHB VP
Jason O’Neal (c.) and Teller Pam Harrison on the corner location
of the to-be-built OHB bank building at Highway 1 and Pontotoc
Street, just south of the curve and across from the newly opened
Dollar General Store in Roff. Joe has agreed to sell two of his lots
at this location for the construction of a replacement for the
original 40-year-old bank building in Roff.
Nearly forty years ago, Oklahoma Heritage Bank
(then known as the Pontotoc County Bank) entered
into existence at its familiar location on Highway 1 in
Roff and ever since has faithfully served the families
and businesses in the surrounding communities like a
trusted neighbor. But the march of time has eroded
this proud manufactured building that was trucked into
town four decades ago. The prematurely aged structure must be replaced, and in this time of necessity,
opportunity came a’callin’ for the town and OHB.
At the bank’s Christmas party in early December
2015, Chairman/CEO Darryl Fisher surprised the staff
and officers with the announcement that the Roff bank
would soon be replaced with an architect-designed
building (ADG-Oklahoma City) that will serve the
bank’s friends and neighbors with state-of-art banking.
Rebuilding in the same location proved impractical,
and after a four month search, second-generation Roff
resident Joe Morrow just appeared with an offer to sell
his property at the southeast corner of Pontotoc Ave
and Hickory St. If this intersection sounds familiar, it
should. This corner lot is just beyond the Roff curve,
diagonally across the intersection from the brand-new
Dollar General Store.
A two lane expanded drive-thru and a 24/7 ATM
will be designed to complement an efficiently configured interior that will enhance the personal style of
banking that OHB has come to be known for. OHBRoff Manager Jason O’Neal recalls the recent afternoon when he, Chairman Fisher, OHB Board member
Board member Ron Tidwell, and Teller Pam Harrison
met Joseph Morrow at the property location, “It was a
beautiful early spring afternoon, and as we stood there
we all sensed that this ground just spoke to each of us
as we all walked about thinking our own thoughts and
ideas of how this location would serve future OHB
friends and neighbors for another forty years and beyond.”
OHB Welcomes Dollar
General Store to Roff
By Jason O’Neal, VP/Roff manager
OHB-Roff VP Jason O’Neal pays a welcoming visit to Dollar
General Store Manager Sherry Ragsdale in front of the newly
opened 7600 sq. ft. facility in Roff.
In late March, Dollar General Store without fanfare opened its doors to its new 7600 sq. ft. Roff store
at the corner of Dolberg Rd and Highway 1 to a steady
stream of enthusiastic customers.
(Continued on back)
Home Cookin’
Tyrol, Austria
& Tyrola, Oklahoma:
Byng’s Gary Haney
Looks Back 150 years
Gazpacho: Spain’s
summertime cold ‘soup’
By Chris Watkins, VP/Byng Branch Manager
Gazpacho, Spain’s energized tomato soup, serves as a refreshing
summertime appetizer or main course loaded with fresh, raw vegetables, spices, and herbs blended until chunky or smooth, mild to spicy.
Every bowl of gazpacho is different, depending on the whim of the
cook and the available vegetables, but is always a delicious addition
to any summer’s lunch or dinner.
Gazpacho is not a traditional cooked soup. It has
been accurately described as “more like a liquid
salad.” All the ingredients are not actually cooked,
just blended and chopped vegetables: ripe tomatoes,
green pepper, onion, garlic, cucumber, olive oil, salt,
and occasionally bread. There are a multitude of modern gazpacho recipes, varying in different colors and
ingredients, and even replacing the tomatoes and
bread with avocados, cucumbers, parsley, watermelon,
grapes, meat stock, but always served cold. Gazpacho
keeps well in the refrigerator; the longer it sits, the
more the flavors develop. Often served with varied
toppings, such as shrimp, avocado, green pepper, red
onion, cucumber, crabmeat, corn, feta cheese, etc.
Look for gazpacho on restaurant menus this summer, especially lunch; none will be alike, all reflecting
the tastes of the chef. As for home-made gazpacho,
you can compete with finest restaurant chefs anywhere in serving this chilled treat to your family and
friends. This recipe, adapted from the 1999 Barefoot
Contessa (Ina Gartner) is simple and sure to please.
1 cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled
2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
4 plum tomatoes
1 red onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups tomato juice
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers,
tomatoes, and red onions into 1-inch cubes. Put each
vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with
a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do
not over-process! After each vegetable is processed
by itself, combine them in a large bowl and add the
garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and
pepper. Mix well and chill before serving.
Prep time – 20 minutes. Serves 4-6.
STRATFORD
OHB VP Chris Watkins (l.) stands with longtime Byng resident
and OHB friend and neighbor Gary Haney on the high point of
the old Tyrola settlement (a predecessor to the Byng community,
near to the K-Ten television tower. The rolling, occasionally hilly,
landscape surrounding the original settler locations in this area
could have been the inspiration for naming the town Tyrola, in
honor of the European community, Tyrol, set in the Austrian alps.
I recently sat down with OHB friend and my neighbor, Gary Haney, who has lived north of OHB-Byng for
most of his adult life in the area of the vanished pioneer
community Tyrola. Gary is a collector of historical
memorabilia and coauthored Images of America:
Pontotoc County (Arcadia Publishing. 2010) with
award-winning playwright and poet Gare Strickland.
I, too, have lived my adult life in the Byng area, but
I was not even vaguely familiar with the fascinating
story of Tyrola, Oklahoma, a Boomer settlement that
evolved in the Unassigned Lands (Indian Territory)
about 150 years ago and existed for a couple of generations of frontier life before fading into the fog of history.
Growing up in these parts, I never encountered the
local lore about the historic connection of our spot in the
center of America to the Tyrolean Alps area of Austria
until I met Gary. Of course, we all can identify the
Austrian Tyrol and the Tyrolean Alps, made famous by
the 1965 American musical drama film, The Sound of
Music, starring Julie Andrews, and set against the backdrop of the Austrian city, Innsbruck.
Local historian Gary took me, through his storytelling talent, back nearly 150 years with his colorful
tales of pre-statehood Byng, Oklahoma to describe how
Byng and environs got its start from where Tyrola left
off. In 1896 the United States established a Post Office
in Tyrola, about ten miles north of the frontier settlement
known as Ada and where the KTEN tower is now
located. This post office served a growing population of
immigrant-settlers, some from as far away as central
Europe, who were entering and settling in Indian
Territory. These white settlers, called Boomers, then
and now, believed the Unassigned Lands to be public
property, open for settlement to anyone, not just Indian
tribes. The Boomers based their beliefs in this pioneering privilege on the 1862 Homestead Act that provided
any settler could claim 160 acres of “public land.”
This area was great for farming, with rich soil and
abundant water. As the number of these settlers grew into
the hundreds, they flocked together for protection in
ROFF
R. Darryl Fisher, MD
Jason O’Neal
Chance Branscum
New Accounts Representative
Shirley Barnett, Head Teller
Pam Harrison, Teller
Judy Dixon, Loan Processor
CEO/Chairman of the Board
Dustin Riddle, President/COO
VP/Branch Manager
Paula Balentine, VP/Operations-Audit
J.D. Bostic, VP/Loan Officer
Shirl Wilcher, VP Operations
Director of Communications
Jared Wells
Assistant Vice President/Loan Officer
Deniece Snow
Assistant Vice President
Karen Dowing, Loan Processor
Gloria Moore
Loan Administration
Louise Cagle, Internal Control/Audit
Ann Bonner, Fred Stephens, and
Courtney Hatton, Tellers
VP/Branch Manager
Breana Burkhead
Billy Norton
ADA
VP/Chief Lending Officer
Julia Jack
VP/Branch Manager
Kim Streetman
Assistant Vice President
Loan Administration Supervisor
Jericho Allen, Mortgage Loan Processor
Jenni Watson, Teller/New Accounts
Ryan Jolley, Teller
Rosa Cruz, Receptionist/Teller
BYNG
primitive prairie shanties and rough-cut wood shacks,
just east of where the current K-Ten station has been
located for the last 60+ years. Almost certainly, a few of
these settlers were Austrian immigrants, homesick for
their native land. In the late 1800s the settlers named
their primitive village Tyrola, presumably after the city
of Tyrol in western Austria (the capital of Tyrol remains
Innsbruck). On the contraty, some settlers have claimed
the name Tyrola originated from an Indian word,
sounding like ‘Tyro Le’, meaning ‘bend in the river’.
In early Tyrola, a cemetery soon became a necessity,
and it still can be seen in a fenced-off area on property
now owned by OG&E. A school building that doubled
as a church and community center resulted from the collective effort of the Boomers, and its foundation is still
there today. After several years a large train depot
became located a few miles away, bringing many settlers
and businesses there, effectively relocating the town to a
new Tyrola location. A devastating flood in 1914
washed away the railroad bridge and most of new Tyrola.
The town was unable to recover fully and in 1922 the
post office closed. The school at Tyrola merged with
New Bethel in 1926 to form Consolidated School
District #3 which was officially named Byng in 1929.
Today, I can stand on the high point of the old Tyrola
settlement, near to the K-Ten tower, and look in every
direction to see the rolling, occasionally hilly, landscape
and feel the gusts of Oklahoma wind in my face. When
I close my eyes, I can imagine, as the early Boomers
must have, that I am transported home to the Tyrolean
Alps. And if I keep my eyes closed longer, I will hear the
voice of Julie Andrews singing, “The hills are alive
with the sound of music, With songs they have sung for
a thousand years . . . .”
Roff Dollar General (continued)
Two weeks later (April 8) the Roff Chamber of
Commerce hosted a Grand Opening event with give-aways and free hotdogs for hundreds of visitors to the
store. Store Manager Sherry Ragsdale during her
fourteen years with the company has opened Dollar
General Stores all over southern part of the state, from
Ardmore to Kingston to Davis and now here in Roff.
“This is one of the nicest Dollar General Stores I have
been a part of,” she said.
Sherry lives in Sulphur with her husband of 30
years, Ricky, who is retired from Weyerhaeuser in
Arkansas, Their two children and six grandchildren live
nearby and are the reasons for their relocation to this
area. Roff resident Jared Stacey is the store’s Assistant
Manager. The store employs eight.
The store is located on the northwest corner of
Dolberg Rd and State Hwy 1. “This is going to be a
busy little intersection right here,” said Sherry. In fact,
1500-2000 cars daily pass by the new store, according
to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. “When
the new OHB is built, it will be such a blessing having
the bank right across the street,” she added.
The Dollar General company, headquartered in
Tennessee, operates over 12,400 stores in 43 states,
offering both name-brand and generic merchandise,
including off-brand goods and closeouts, from groceries, to home goods, to tools, to toys, to soft drinks, to
clothing items. The store is open daily 8 AM to 10 PM.
Chris Watkins
VP/Branch Manager
Madonna Penick
New Accounts Representative
Susan Overall, Teller
Carla Campbell, Loan Processor
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
R. Darryl Fisher
Chairman of the Board/CEO
Bo Cail, Director
Wayne Cobb, Director
Don Connally, Director
Phyllis Danley, Director
Rick Griffin, Director
Keri Coleman Norris, Director
Ron Tidwell, Director
Advisory Directors:
Dustin Riddle, Chris Watkins,
Paula Balentine, and Billy Norton
Eric S. Fisher, Sr., Esq., General Counsel