The slogan around here is "There's no place like home," but soon Simmons First National Bank on Main Street won't call this community home anymore.
A few weeks ago, the bank told customers they would close June 30.
"It's going to be a big change for a lot of people," Cara Easter, superintendent of the Green Ridge R-VIII District, said.
Easter told 41 Action News her school district is the bank's biggest customer. The small bank has served businesses and residents since the late 1800s.
"When you're from the outside looking in, people don't even realize, and I think that everyone is feeling there's going hardship for the community," Easter said.
Simmons Bank isn't just shutting down the front doors to the branch, but the 24-hour ATM is going away as well, leaving the school district to figure out how they'll efficiently do a 20-mile round trip for their daily deposit to the bank's Sedalia branch.
"It makes it almost impossible for some of the elderly people to actually get their banking done," Allan Rohrbach, Green Ridge's retired fire chief and former mayor, said.
Rohrbach has banked at Simmons First since 1973. He says the closure will cripple this community.
"The post office has been reduced here, and if the bank leaves, this may be another reason to lose that post office too. You never know what their thinking is," Rohrbach said.
In a statement, Simmons First declined to delve into specifics about the closing.
"All banks must continuously evaluate their branch networks in light of changes in an industry that sees more customers using electronic banking. This phenomenon is not unique to Simmons. All such decisions are made with customers in mind," Rex Nelson, a bank spokesman, wrote.
Rohrbach wants the bank to reconsider their decision or sell the facility to another bank.
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com
