Sue Hurley retiring after 61 years at Cedar Bluff bank

By Scott Wright

CEDAR BLUFF — When 18-year-old Sue Wood walked into the Cedar Bluff Bank in August 1946 and sat down in front of an adding machine for the first time, she didn't think too much about what she'd be doing six decades later. She was just happy to be there.

“I was just out of high school and I needed a job,” she said. “The president, W.R. Westbrook, asked me and I said I'd take it. They put me to work that day.”

Fast-forward to 2007 and Sue is sitting in pretty much the same place, doing pretty much the same thing -- for a few more days, anyway. She's retiring Friday after 61 years at the bank.

Sue's surroundings have changed a bit since the year after World War II ended. Through the decades, she has seen a small farming community changed forever by the construction of 30,000-acre Weiss Lake in 1961. She also helped move the bank to a new facility across the street in 1974 and watched as the sign out front changed to read “Union State Bank” in 1982. Throughout the 1990s, Sue re-learned her job several times over after her clunky, hand-cranked adding machine was replaced by a succession of faster, sleeker computers.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Sue feels banking today is drastically different from the way it was in 1946.

“It has really changed, compared to 60 years ago. It's not anything like it used to be,” she said. “To open up a checking account all you had to do was walk up to the teller and give her your money and your name and address. There were no account numbers, no Social Security numbers. You got a receipt and that was it.”

Through all those changes and hundreds of others, Sue, who turns 80 this week, has handed out millions in bills and coins, learned the banking industry inside-out and memorized the names of thousands of customers. Co-workers say they will miss her knack for friendly, personal service after she cleans out her desk.

“She taught me to love people and love my job,” said Dora Norton, who has worked alongside Sue for the past 24 years. “I don't know what we're going to do. She's my rock and she IS this bank. It's definitely going to be different without her.”

Sue's co-workers apparently made a similar impression on her over the years, too.

“I've worked with about 140 people since I started,” she said. “I keep a list of all of them. Of course, a lot of them are deceased now.”

Sue said she's also spent time thinking about all the bank patrons she's come to know over the years who she'll no longer see on a regular basis.

“I've had a lot of really good customers over the years, and I've gotten close to a lot of them,” she said. “They're wonderful people and I've always been happy with them and tried to please them any way I could.”

Sue didn't want to call out the names of any favorites for fear of excluding someone. But she did offer one story as an example of the lengths she is willing to go to keep customers happy. One year, she said, an elderly gentleman who was a regular customer missed out on getting his bank calendar and threatened to pull his money out of the bank if someone didn't find him one, and fast.

“I remembered that I had brought a calendar home so I left the bank and ran home and got that calendar and came back and gave it to him. Of course I only live a half-mile away,” she chuckled.

Sue said she considered retiring in 1996, just before her husband Bill passed away. But she said he talked her out of it. She won't reconsider her decision this time around, she said. But that doesn't mean she's going to spend all of her time sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, either.

“I'm still going to work,” she said. “I've got three sisters in bad health, and my brother, too. I'm going to try to help them all I can. I've got a little 2-year-old great-granddaughter that I'm going to keep a lot.”

Sue said she also enjoys quilting and cross-stitching, and plans to catch up on some long-neglected patterns once she gets her house cleaned up. And anyone who knows Sue Hurley knows she's already thinking about what to plant in her garden next spring. She's determined to make a better showing with her vegetables in 2008.

“The dry weather got them all this time,” she said.