Tejas Bank President and CEO Todd Hunt grew up on a ranch south of Monahans and attended school in Grandfalls. At nine years old, Hunt started participating in 4-H showing steers, which, he says, really opened his horizons.
“4-H teaches you how to deal with things you’ll have to deal with throughout life,” Hunt said. “I think it teaches kids a lot about life that you can’t learn in a classroom. It teaches responsibility, it teaches how to win and lose and it even teaches about life and death sometimes.”
Hunt’s parents and grandparents encouraged him in his 4-H endeavors by being very involved, and the profits he made from showing his livestock even helped him earn his way through college. Loving the outdoors, Hunt always assumed he would have a career related to agriculture, but there were other plans in the works.
Hunt attended Tarleton State in Stephenville, earning a degree in economics. He still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do following graduation, but he knew he wanted to return home. So, he took a job in 1996 at the bank his parents had always banked at, First State Bank, figuring he would decide on a career later on.
“After 24 years, I guess I still haven’t figured out what I want to do, so I’m still banking,” Hunt joked.
But that’s not entirely true — he and his dad are partners in a cattle ranch, where he lives and works and he is the superintendent of the livestock show — meaning he works two fulltime jobs, enjoying the best of both worlds, indoors and outdoors.
Paving the road to Tejas Bank
Hunt worked at First State Bank for three years before joining First National Bank, where he worked for 10 years and was president of the Monahans branch. But when Security Bank bought First National Bank, Hunt and some local investors decided they wanted to purchase a charter in Iraan and move the bank to Monahans to keep a local bank option open for the town’s customers.
“Since there was no local bank any more, we saw it as a good opportunity to have a local choice,” Hunt said. “We’ve been blessed. We bought it at $22 million in assets and it’s now at $188 million.”
In October, Tejas Bank celebrated its 10-year anniversary, allowing the bank to continue being the only local bank serving the Monahans community. Much like the bank’s name, Hunt said their motto is putting “friendly” back into banking.
“We try to be a really good community bank,” Hunt said. “We have customers from all over West Texas because they like the hometown feel. We, and our staff, really live by, ‘Treat people the way you want to be treated.’”
Because of their location, a lot of their business comes from lending in oil services.
Since the bank’s inception, they have sold the branch in Iraan to focus on the bank in Monahans.
They also strongly support 4-H programs as one of the major buyers at the livestock show, pooling money together to buy livestock to support students who are saving to attend college, much like Hunt did.
Hunt represents the bank in his community in a number of ways, including attending ribbon cuttings as a Monahans ambassador, serving as a deacon at the First Baptist Church, being involved in the Chamber of Commerce and contributing to the Ward County Endowment Fund, a permanent endowment that gives college scholarships to local students each year.
The great outdoors
When he’s not banking, it comes as no surprise that Hunt is spending time with his family outdoors — either attending 4-H events and livestock shows; watching his kids play football and volleyball; or exploring the United States’ great outdoors. Hunt has been married to his wife, Cindy — a local of Monahans — for 24 years. His son, Blaine, is a senior in high school and his daughter, Valerie, is in seventh grade.
Last summer, his family took an Alaskan cruise, where they saw whales, along with a number of other animals. And a few years ago, they drove all over the state of Arizona. But his all-time favorite trip was visiting Yellowstone because of how beautiful it was.