‘Your Hometown Bank Since 1934’

For over nine decades, a cornerstone of downtown McKenzie has been McKenzie Banking Company. Though the financial institution has grown into a regional presence as Foundation Bank, with six locations across northwest Tennessee, it remains, as the sign says, “your hometown bank since 1934.”

A charter was filed with the State of Tennessee on February 21, 1934, and the first meeting of the board of directors was February 23, 1934, where B.T. Everett was elected president.

The bank first opened its doors on March 3 at 15 Broadway Street, now the McKenzie Memorial Library.

Everett served as president until November 4, 1961, succeeded by J.E. (Doc) Bell.

Bell relocated the bank to its present location at 676 North Main Street in 1964.

The branch at 15345 Highland Drive opened in 1967.

Bell retired on January 17, 1978, handing over the reins to Ruth Morris. Morris oversaw a major renovation in 1984, including the relocation of the bookkeeping department to the basement.

On October 25, 1985, McKenzie Banking Company stockholders sold their shares to McKenzie Holding Company, renamed to Progressive Financial Services, Inc.

Charles P. Wilson became president on December 31, 1985, followed by Keith Priestley in 2007.

In 2008, McKenzie Banking Company and other branches consolidated under the name Foundation Bank.

Charles’ son, Chad P. Wilson, has been president since 2010.

Yet another renovation was recently completed, beautifying and modernizing the Main Street office inside and out.

Shawna Fowler is the McKenzie Branch Manager and also serves as the deposit services supervisor.

For the majority of her 17 years with the bank, she was a new accounts representative. She was named assistant branch manager seven years ago until the retirement of Emily Young.

A graduate of Sharon High School and the University of Tennessee at Martin, she moved to McKenzie when she married, and sold insurance at Jim Alexander (also downtown) before a job opening drew her to MBC.

Fowler told The Banner she enjoys working with people and talking to people. “MBC wants to be involved in the community, in what’s happening.”

She spoke about the balance of a growing company that wants to keep its roots deep in downtown McKenzie. “We talk about that a lot because we’ve been here so long, a lot of our clients and customers are older and we don’t want to just fade away. We want to keep growing and that’s the reason we’ve tried to spread to other locations.

“That’s another reason we did this refresh, to try to change with the time, be more personable for the new, younger generation, to have a new look. We’re trying to get new customers and keep our old customers all at the same time. Being here and being the hometown bank, we’re trying to be that but still grow and change.”

One part of that is keeping up with changing trends and technology, particularly the rise of online banking options. Fowler said, “You have to listen to what your customers want, especially younger customers, because they want internet banking, the mobile app, all the technology, so you have to keep up with that, which we try to do. Then, the older customers want to see your face. So, it’s push and pull. You just have to do all of it and try to do all of it well.

“Some banks have drive-thrus where you don’t even see a person. You talk into a computer, and it might be a person on the other end, but you’re not seeing their face. We had talked about trying that, but I don’t think our customers want that.”

She also acknowledged it’s not just the online banks MBC is competing with. “Anything we want to do we want to be competitive against other banks in town, so we want to have competitive rates. We have one of the best checking accounts that we know of around here that pays a good interest rate. You get benefits from that checking account that we don’t think anybody else has. So that’s what we try to do. We try to do everything that somebody else does, but we try to do it better. So that’s really what we’re always focused on. Our name in town is good. We have a good reputation.”

Part of that reputation comes from community outreach and involvement.

The bank is a member of the McKenzie Chamber, and Fowler served on the board.

MBC actively supports McKenzie schools, including being a sponsor of the new football scoreboard. “We try to work with the school a lot, if they need something, we’re always there to help them. We just fed the teachers breakfast before they went back for the second half. We sponsor everything that goes on at the school, as well as summer sports leagues. We try to be involved in everything, so we’re seen, and not just seen, but they know that we’re here if they need something.”

MBC has been an excellent neighbor to another cornerstone of downtown, the Park Theatre. Major contributions to the restoration initiative earned MBC a namesake in the historic theater, the stage.

In past years, and beginning again soon, MBC has sponsored weekly discounted movie screenings for bank customers.

Fowler said, “It’s just sad to me the way downtown has gone down, there’s so many empty buildings, we wanted that [the theater restoration] to happen if it was possible, so we just did what we could to make it happen. Our donation and whatever we needed to do to get it to come to fruition, we did. And I’m glad, I’m glad it’s being used, even if it didn’t have our name across the stage, I’m glad it’s open for the community. I wish everything downtown was full, but we were excited that we could do that.”

Fowler said of her own building’s renovation, “We wanted to make it open, more personal.” Demolition began last summer. Teller row was removed from the lobby, making way for desks for each teller. “It’s beneficial to customers to be able to sit and talk to them, and to the tellers to have more room for their job duties.”

The project leaned on local labor and talent. “We tried to use a lot of local people.” Granite Warehouse of McKenzie and JC Educational and Office Supply of Paris were major suppliers. Allyson Barden of McKenzie repainted furniture that MBC wanted to keep through the renovation, and Ava Warman, also of McKenzie, drew sketches of the Bethel Wildcat and Rebel man that hang framed in the new lobby.

“I knew that I wanted to do that, I wanted to use local people for our remodel. And I think it turned out great. We’ve only had good feedback. People like being able to sit down and talk during their transactions.”

The exterior was revamped with updated landscaping and a new sign and logo. Fowler insisted, however, that one thing remained unchanged. “They wanted to take off ‘your hometown bank since 1934’ and I said, ‘No, we’re leaving that, that describes what we are.”

Fowler said, “I think we have such a good team here, we have good tellers, front line people, our behind the scenes staff, our loan staff is good, our new accounts people are good. Even the people you don’t see. We have such a good team here that I’m proud of.”

The Foundation Bank umbrella now includes locations in McKenzie, Paris, Paris Landing, Alamo, Obion and Jackson.