At a young age, Kirk Penner learned the value of a hard day’s work from his father, Max. Max was in the grocery business. He and his partner, Wayne Gott, invested in several supermarkets in South Central and South Eastern, Missouri, and eventually expanded into northern Arkansas and Tennessee. At the age of nine, Kirk started helping out in the local store. He worked there after school and during the summers. “I worked in every department — produce, meat, cashier — the bakery was my favorite, though; I fried lots of doughnuts,” Kirk fondly recalled. This experience taught Kirk the value of having good customer relationships. In the early 1970s, Kirk’s father and partner made the decision to start buying some smaller banks, one of which was in Seymour, Missouri. Kirk had always thought he would be in the grocery business because that is what he knew and loved. One day, Kirk told his father he wanted to stay in the grocery business. His father responded with a kind but firm, “No. I need you to learn the banking business.” Obediently, Kirk enrolled at the University of Missouri in Columbia and started learning about banking and finances. During the summers, Kirk worked at The Seymour Bank, putting his newly learned knowledge to work. It was during this time that he started bookkeeping. “I had to make sure everybody endorsed their checks by going through every single check by hand,” Kirk said. “We had a correspondent bank in Springfield we put our cash letter through. We would use Microfiche to check accounts and their balances.” Kirk got along well with people, and he soon became a teller with the additional responsibility of running the proof machine to balance all of the daily bank transactions. June of 1981 was memorable. The bank moved to a new location to accommodate its growth and, at the same time, got its first in-house computer system. “I was charged with inputting all of the customer information into the database. It took me the entire summer to complete that,” Kirk said. Kirk graduated from business school in 1983 and started working full-time — first as a loan officer, then as an accountant, and then purchasing all of the bank’s bonds. Over time, the bank continued to grow and there were considerably more rules and regulations that it had to comply with. “I was in charge of writing all of our policies. We did what you would think of as traditional banking, and there wasn’t anything written down — so I had to create all of the policies and procedures and put them in writing.” Today, Kirk is the president of The Seymour Bank. The city of Seymour has not changed much over the years. It is a small town of around 2,300 people, and just outside of town, there is a large Amish community of approximately 4,000. Kirk enjoys being able to help his small community and the neighboring Amish by investing in its people. Banking with the Amish community brings many unique experiences. There was one time an Amiah man had his horse die in the bank’s drive-through. “That was quite an event and something I never thought I would have to deal with,” said Kirk. The bank caters to the needs of its Amish customers and has installed hitches in the parking lot so they can tie their horses up when they come in and do business in the bank. “A lot of communities have lost their community bank — the existing larger banks don’t seem to be as concerned with the local area as they are with accumulating deposits and loaning the money elsewhere. A traditional community bank isn’t doing that. The money that they loan is received from local deposits and then loaned out to local people. That money is staying here, and it’s reinvested in the community,” Kirk said. Kirk remembers a local gentleman who wanted to go into the trash business in Seymour — picking trash up from local homes and hauling it to the dump. The gentleman approached Kirk and said he needed to borrow money to buy a 1974 Chevrolet pickup truck to haul the trash. “The truck looked like the devil; it was beat up and old,” Kirk said. “That probably wasn’t a good asset to loan on. But the philosophy I have is that you can loan on some asset, however, that’s not what’s paying you back. It’s the person you’re investing in. This is a people business.” Kirk gave him the loan. The gentleman started out driving up and down the streets, picking up trash, putting it in his truck and going to the dump. Eventually, he needed a bigger truck and a trash packer. The Seymour Bank loaned him the money for that and continued making loans to him as dumpsters were needed. The gentleman grew a successful business, and it all started with a A BACKGROUND ON Kirk Penner of The Seymour Bank 22 | The Show-Me Banker Magazine
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