ELK CITY — Jimmy Harrel and his band of bankers love helping people in their communities, and beyond.
Harrel, chief executive officer of Western Bank of Oklahoma, has been a big part of the Elk City and Vici communities since he and his late cousin Donald Harrel bought the bank in the 1980s. They expanded that outreach in 2004 by purchasing four Gold Bank locations in Weatherford, Cordell and Geary. In 2005, Harrel led the charge to build a Western Bank of Oklahoma branch in Woodward.
While all the banks support their local schools and civic activities, Harrel also promotes 4-H and FFA programs statewide. In 2002, Harrel and Bob Funk, co-founder and president of Express Employment Professionals, assumed control of the Oklahoma Youth Expo — coined as the world’s largest youth livestock show.
“We went from having a $300,000 premium sale to a $1.3 million premium sale,” Harrel said. “We also give $300,000 in scholarships. This gives these young people a chance to use that money to buy a car or go to college. We also support these young people at the local, county and district levels. People don’t realize how much (effort) these kids put into these animals.”
Western Bank of Oklahoma spends more than $100,000 for local shows and sponsors a dinner for the ag participants and their parents.
“We buy the premium on their animals, and they keep them (cows),” Harrel said.
Harrel, a former ag teacher, said he often hires the high school ag students after they graduate because of their strong work ethic.
The bank’s community involvement extends to Southwestern Oklahoma State University where the bank has raised funds for the athletic department and the school’s event center, said David Terry, president of the Woodward branch.
“As a community bank, we’re involved in just about everything,” he said.
Another big undertaking is the broadcast of high school basketball games in eight communities, including Leedey, Hammon, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Merritt, Sweetwater, Elk City and Erick. The broadcasts are underwritten totally by Western Bank of Oklahoma, the third-largest lender for agriculture in a seven-state region.
The broadcast network, known as Paragon Communication, Inc., will begin broadcasting basketball games Nov. 1. The network, which will begin its fifth season, provides a streaming service that allows people with Internet access to watch the games anywhere in the U.S. and overseas.
Lead broadcaster Lake Carpenter handles Leedey’s play-by-play duties as he teams with a color commentator for each regular season game and playoffs. Each town has their own broadcast and camera crew.
“Our games were highly viewed, especially during COVID,” Carpenter said. “We have thousands of people watching these games. Even though the bank is the sole sponsor, we try to be positive toward both teams and the refs.”
Carpenter, a senior vice president at the bank, also uses his self-taught broadcasting skills to host area beauty pageants, hospital galas and school fundraisers.
Western Bank of Oklahoma has also brought celebrity entertainment to its communities by sponsoring concerts from singing sensations The Oak Ridge Boys, Ronnie Milsap and Tanya Tucker.
“It’s good for the community,” Harrel said. “I don’t know that you do good things with the expectation of something in return. We just enjoy doing it for the community. I always told myself if I ever had any money, I’d do these things for the community.”
Harrel, a longtime rancher in western Oklahoma, said he enjoyed the times when business was conducted with a “handshake and a smile.”
“There’s a statue outside the bank of my cousin (Donald Harrel) and myself on horses and we’re shaking hands across a fence. My cousin helped me buy the banks in the ‘80s.”
The words “Binding Contract” are placed on stone below the bronze statue, which was commissioned in 2009 following Donald Harrel’s death a year earlier. The larger-than-life sculpture was unveiled in November 2020.
“A cowboy’s word, sealed with a handshake, was a binding contract; a contract much like the one that Donald and Jimmy Harrel made in the purchasing of the Bank of Western Oklahoma some twenty plus years ago,” the bank’s website states. “The cowboy heritage was passed to them from their late fathers, Henry Harrel and Lance Harrel, true cowboys and ranchers who settled in western Oklahoma in the early nineteen hundreds.”
The bronze sculpture of Donald and Jimmy Harrel on horseback depicts their mission and that of the Bank of Western Oklahoma, “to continue the way of life where a cowboy’s word and a handshake is a ‘Binding Contract,’” the website states.
The statue was created by Bradford Williams, one of the most sought-after artists in the western genre. He is known for creating sculptures of actors Tom Selleck and John Wayne and NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.