FCS Financial: One Hundred Years July 2016 | Page 70

Many employees worked long days seven days a week, trying to
get Farm Service Agency guarantees for their member/borrowers to
keep them in business. With the guarantee secured, they could then
restructure the member’s loan instead of foreclosing on them. “Later
on,” Gary Wrye recalled, “it was fun to watch those guys retire as
millionaires. We stayed with them. It was a lot of long hours, a lot of
stress, but it was worth it.” Sometimes the reward came in a slightly
less noble form, but was gratifying just the same. For example,
when things were at their worst in 1986, the farmers around the
Mexico office met at a local watering hole every Wednesday night to
commiserate with each other. One of those farmers came into Gary’s
office one day and said, “Let me tell you something. You got voted the
least hated banker in Audrain County.” To which he humbly replied,
“Thanks a lot, man. That makes me feel really good!”

Jefferson City PCA Board of Directors (L to R)
Chairman James Zerr, James McMullin, Stan
Cook Jr., William Charles, Paul Bexten, and
PCA President Roy Pittrich attend the Missouri
Directors Conference in Columbia, 1983.
Jefferson City PCA Board of Directors (L to R)
William Charles, Stan Cook Jr., Chairman Jim
Zerr, Paul Bexten, and James McMullin in a
meeting, December 1983.

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Selected References