100 years for community bank
Community Bank CEO, Donald Olsson Jr. accepts the Centennial Award from Montana Secretary of State, Linda McCulloch, Friday in front of a replica of the 1912 Ronan State Bank building, made by Dana Thinglestad.
Community Bank employee, Sylvia Callantine (right), asks the bank's vice-president, Debby Olsson McClenahan, to autograph he copy of the book Olsson McClenahan authored, Community Bank: The First 100 Years, at the centennial celebration barbecue Friday in Ronan. The book, which was free to the public, chronicals the history of Community Bank and the Flathead Indian Reservation.
RONAN — Debby Olsson McClenahan remembers the Ronan Pioneer Days community barbecues of her youth as being “a big deal.” While the event has faded away in recent years, when Montana Secretary of State, Linda McCulloch’s office, notified Olsson McClenahan and the Board of Directors at Community Bank that they’d won a Centennial Award, everyone decided it was a perfect occasion to breathe life into the barbecue once again.
“The idea was to bring back the barbecue and make it fun for everybody,” Olsson McClenahan said.
On Friday, McCulloch presented the award to the Polson branch of Community Bank at noon, and to the Ronan branch at 5 p.m. Bank employees, dressed in old-fashioned attire, welcomed community members to each event with food, music, dancing and antique cars from every decade since 1910.
Earning one of 18 Centennial Awards being distributed state-wide this year, Community Bank, formerly Ronan State Bank, first registered with the Secretary of State’s office in January, 1910.
“Achieving a centennial milestone isn’t easy,” McCulloch said in her award presentation. “This bank has not only survived unsteady markets, it has endured depressions, world wars, earthquakes, expansion and globalization.”
According to McCulloch, by the 1920s, more than 600 banks failed each year and many people in rural areas lost their life savings. But, the family owned and operated Community Bank was different.
“Whether it was good management, luck, or a little bit of both, we are here today celebrating its 100-year anniversary,” she said.
This is the first year that McCulloch’s office has sponsored the Centennial Award, but she hopes it won’t be the last.
“It’s just been fun to recognize businesses that have really been a rock in the community,” she said. “100 years is a long time and with that comes a lot of stories, events and non-events.”
In honor of that fact, Olsson McClenahan authored a 128-page book highlighting the events that led to the creation, struggles and successes of the first 100 years of the bank, which was distributed to the public free of charge on Friday. From the time of Glacial Lake Missoula to today, the book is a collection of stories, quotes, maps and photographs that paint a detailed picture of the bank, the communities it serves and of the Flathead Indian Reservation as a whole.
“I grew up here, but I never knew most of these things,” Olsson McClenahan said. “I think there is some huge work that could be done here to bring people together and it’s too powerful a heritage not to work at it.”