By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
Like most young people of her generation, Bonnie Horton entered the workforce right out of school. The Grayson native said that she had always been interested in business and once she graduated in 1973, she went straight to ACTC Vocational School and began taking business classes.
“I happened to walk into the bank one morning,” Horton recalled.
Her mother, she said, had sent her to deposit her father’s paycheck in the bank. That, she said, was the beginning of a long and wonderful business relationship.
“When I walked into the bank, Giles Robinson was standing there, and he asked me, ‘Are you working?’ I told him no; I’m going to school. And he said, ‘Well, I thought you might want a job.’ I answered, maybe I would,” Horton recalled with a laugh.
Robinson suggested that Horton come in the following Monday for an interview. She agreed and let her business instructor know she had an interview scheduled.
“I came in and he asked if I would care to write my name in cursive,” Horton said. “So, I wrote my name in cursive, and he told me I had very nice, legible handwriting and I had the job if I wanted it.”
Horton, who had always been interested in business anyway, said there were also other attractions to working at the bank.
“I remember coming into the bank with my mother, and I always thought it was a big deal,” she said.
She recalled Mildred Bowling, who was an officer at First National Bank at the time, and remembered seeing her around Grayson.
“I told my mother that she (Bowling) looked like a movie star,” Horton said. “And I just thought it was so prestigious to work at a bank. And I was really excited about the job.”
Horton remembered telling her instructor about getting the job, and he suggested testing her out of the class early.
“So, I tested out early, got my diploma, and started working at First National Bank. And I have been here ever since.”
That “ever since,” in Horton’s case, is a career that has run – so far – for an impressive fifty years.
“My very first job, on my very first day, was to make headers for customers’ addresses for their accounts and banking statements,” Horton said. “It was this huge metal machine, and you had to put the letters in it to spell their name out like in a printing press. And I did that for all the new accounts that day. And once I learned that they put me on posting,” she said. “That was where you took every check and every deposit and posted it to the general ledger and the customer’s account. And then you had to balance that general ledger back to the account.”
Horton’s early experiences working at the bank might seem confusing to young folks today, with modern technology such as banking software and instant registering of transactions being the accepted norm. But the entire process used to be much more labor intensive, and there was as much, or more, work going on when the bank was closed to the public as there was when the doors were open to customers.
“I remember only being here a month or two, and at the time we would double post on Friday evenings, so we could get out early on Saturdays. I remember one Friday we were a little out,” Horton said. “Not a lot, just a very little bit. But we worked until 11 pm that night to balance it. I was still living with my parents and when I went home that night, my father said, ‘What about banker’s hours?’ And I said, ‘This is banker’s hours, Dad,” Horton remembered, with more humor now no doubt than when she had finished that particular shift.
Horton has watched the banking business and the customer’s end of that experience evolve over the years. Initially, customers would come in and make a deposit or cash a check, perhaps pay a payment on a mortgage or other loan, and that was the extent of it. There were of course savings accounts, CDs, and other familiar products, but the process was much different when she first began her career. And Horton has watched the advent of internet banking, mobile banking, and many other finance related apps.
“There are still glitches, and there probably will always be glitches, but for the most part technology is a tremendous help,” she said.
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the bank’s desire to know their customers and call them by name when they visit their local branch. This makes Horton proud, and the growth of Grayson is a source of pride to her as well.
“I love Grayson, and I live in Grayson,” she said. “And it makes me proud to see new businesses coming to Grayson and old businesses staying in Grayson.”
Horton said she has always loved helping people resolve any problems they might have as they plan for their future. And she is well equipped to do just that, as she worked her way up through the company and has served in many different capacities throughout her career. Each success, and each promotion, has helped her do what she loves to do, which ultimately is helping the community and the people in the community she loves.
“I’m not as hands on as I used to be,” Horton said.
But now, having risen to the role of Chief Operations Officer, she is in a position to provide guidance to all the younger people working at the bank, and ultimately help more people than she could on her own. But she said she has no plans to retire, in spite of the fact that she could have years earlier. And as for her plans for the future, she has a very simple answer.
“I plan to be at my desk at 8:30 in the morning, like always.”
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
