Dear Bank of Prairie Village Community~
The first Summer month, June, moves behind us. In reviewing my prior June letter, I noted I always start my letters with “Dear Bank of Prairie Village Community.”
This past week I’ve been thinking a great deal about being a “Community” Banker and our Bank of Prairie “Community.”
During a recent pleasant Salina drive to visit my folks I had a chance to reflect why I use the quirky “Community” to address my letters.
Initially over a decade ago, I always started my letters “Dear Bank of Prairie Village Clients and Shareholders.” At some point during our journey, I changed the address to “Dear Bank of Prairie Community.”
I do not know when or why I started substituting “Community” for “Clients and Shareholders.” My substation must’ve been purely subconscious.
On analytical reflection during my drive, I determined the term bank “Community” a much more accurate constituency description of our breath and reach than merely the sum of our clients and shareholders. Our Bank “Community” expands well beyond being merely an “FDIC insured, highly regulated depository institution.”
Rather our Bank Community is its own social ecosystem. Our ecosystem is not purely financial. Yes, like any regulated business we have our own balance sheet with assets, liabilities and capital~ and our own income statement reflecting revenues and expenses. Yes, we have clients, associates, and shareholders. These are all part of being a reputable bank.
However, our Banking “Community’s” ecosystem extends much further and is much harder to define than mere financial calibrations.
We have our local vendors, consultants, professional service providers, tenants, office cleaners, parking lot sweepers, -- and of course all their families depending upon them~ and on us for keeping our part of this ecosystem community going.
Further, being a “community” bank offers all our community members many non-financial satisfactions generating a communal sense of belonging, satisfaction and accomplishment. Thinking of our banking community as being part of our larger family only extends our communal satisfaction.
As I mentioned in a prior letter, I remember vividly a young high schooler coming into the bank virtually covered in tar from his summer driveway surfacing business~ only to see him enter a decade later in medical scrubs as one of Kansas City’s respected orthopedic surgeons.
(You can only imagine my delight when an elderly client recently went on and on to me about her “new wonderful, smart and handsome, orthopedic doctor” who performed “miracle work” on her once “crippled” hand.
(I so wanted to tell my client her new “miracle doctor” was once damn good and hard -working at surfacing driveways ~ but could not figure out how to work it into our conversation.)
In this past month, we’ve had many occasions and interactions to make us feel both pride and satisfaction in our bank’s community. Two in particular standout.
The first occurred when an adult daughter brought in her aging father who simply “wanted to stop by the bank and see the gang.”
I listened as this year 90 plus year old gentleman recounted to our terrific summer intern his experience fighting with the 101st Airborne Division (Screaming Eagles) during the Battle of the Bulge and specifically the siege of Bastogne.
Only after the gentleman left could I explained to our intern this seemingly mild, somewhat reserved, well-mannered gentleman was an actual living member of the hard core, hard fighting unit portrayed in the HBO series “Band of Brothers.” Yes, thinking of this gentleman as part of our (and your) bank’s community should generate a sense of pride.
Our second experience occurred when I noticed one of our (and your) banking community authors’ book climbed onto the NY Times best selling list~
Specifically, David Von Drehle’s The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old.
Amazon introduces David and this Book with the following
description~
“One of our nation’s most prominent writers finds the truth about how to live a long and
happy life in the centenarian next door.
When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a
century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the
meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to
use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival
strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure
carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of
the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques
for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.”
Perhaps, it gives double pleasure that David’s protagonist, “Charlie” was also part of our (and your) extended “community” family.
Your being part of our Bank of Prairie Village Community enables a connection to so many people, and their families, ~ as well as an attachment to their histories, stories, challenges, and perseverance.
It is this connection symbiotically binding our little ecosystem within something much larger than our Bank~ or even Prairie Village.
Yours in a great Summer Season, and being part of a very special Community ~ Dan Bolen
