BANKER RETIRES AFTER 50 YEARS

Banking was more fun before the era of computerization, says William L. Bowers. "People were people, not numbers."

Bowers, a veteran banker who put in his final day at Union Planters Bank Friday, was guest of honor during a retirement party held at Cafe Cape earlier in the day.

Bowers, who retired with 52 years of banking service and a number of other retired bankers who had worked in the industry more than 40 years, talked about a bygone era in banking circles during the Friday get-together.

"We worked together 35 years at old Farmers and Merchants, before it was acquired by Boatmen's Bancorporation," said Jim Reinagel. "Bill came on a few months after I started at the bank."

Reinagel, who retired in 1990 after more than 40 years in the banking industry, was one of several bankers in the party crowd. Also there were Narvol Randol, who served as president of Farmers and Merchants a number of years, and Carl Meyer, who worked with Bowers, Reinagel and Randol for more than 35 years.

Reinagel and Bowers earned $90 a month when they started.

"Meyer made more, $100 a month," said Bowers, pointing out that these were monthly salaries, not weekly."

"If I had to sum up the changes in the banking industry over the years in one word, it would be computerization," said Bowers.

Randol recalled the time Farmers and Merchants received its first computers.

"It replaced eight people," said Randol. "We did not fire eight people, but they were not replaced when they left."

Bowers recalled his first job, which was with the bank at 701 Good Hope.

"We didn't have a drive-in window," he said. "That came later (in the early 1950s). We did a lot of things manually then that are performed by computers today."

Bowers started his banking career on Aug. 1, 1947.

"We were doing posting manually then, with posting machines," he said. "Today, you wouldn't have room for the posting machines that it would take to do the job of the computers."

Bowers remained with Farmers until it was purchased in the early 1980s by Boatmen's. He worked as senior vice president with Boatmen's until June 1982, before becoming president of Cape County Bank of Cape Girardeau.

Cape County Bank became Capital Bank in 1988. Seven years later, in 1995, it was acquired by Union Planters Corp., headquartered in Memphis, Tenn.