This could be a story told in any county in the United States. In fact, it happened in the county that's often considered the most typical in the U.S.
And it's a story about a bank...not a big one, not "too big to fail." Not a bank that gave crazy loans and crazy bonuses to fleeting execs, but a bank that cared too much.
Friday that bank closed forever, and the effect on the community will last for a very long time.
I know banks aren't "sexy topics" but please follow this one over the jump.
This bank had existed for a century. On the sidewalk outside the main branch the names of its presidents were cut into the bricks. They were all highly respected. The school board had even considered naming a school after one of them.
The bank did have a strange reputation. It only lent money to people in its own community. It didn't sell off its mortgages. It extended lines of credit to local small businesses in good faith--even if they weren't rich or famous. It was a local bank in every sense of the word.
Anyone in that community who needed help went to the local bank. It was the mailing address for the community foundation, the place where the local philanthropic folks met.
When the community went "belly up" so did the bank. Unemployment in that county is over 40%. Small businesses are dying. Big banks can spread their reach and the pillars of their support across the country and maybe even the world. Small local banks have no golden parachutes. They just close, and with them the hopes and dreams of thousands of entrepreneurs.
I know bankers aren't normally considered heroes, but some are. The leaders of this bank could have sold out at a profit a couple years back. They didn't; they thought community came first.
When the FDIC came in to take over last Friday, they had to trip over the gifts for the community "Giving Tree." I wonder if they listed them in their inventory, along with the staplers and the calculators.
What the inventory missed was the broken hearts and dreams. Does anyone care?