I believe KBA’s 2020-21 fiscal year will forever be remembered as a test of our individual and collective resilience and fortitude. The onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which reached Kansas in early March 2020, was a proverbial gut-punch that shuttered broad sectors of our economy, largely halted global travel and tourism, and pushed our health care industry beyond the point of exhaustion and vitally needed resources. With over 5,000 lives lost in Kansas and nearly 600,000 lives lost nationally to COVID-19, it’s difficult to look back at the previous year without some degree of sadness and quiet reflection. While I personally knew a handful of individuals who succumbed to COVID-19 and deeply regret any loss of life, I am grateful that my personal family and professional family at the KBA office were able to overcome this historic health malady. My heart goes out to all that were less fortunate this past year.
When COVID-19 placed its initial grip on our state, I penned an article for The Kansas Banker magazine titled: Keep Moving Forward. Little did I know at that early moment of the health crisis I would subsequently witness Kansas bankers not only move forward, but become economic first responders for their customers and communities impacted by economic fallout triggered by the pandemic and accompanying lock-down orders. This past year, Kansas banks and Kansas bankers showed levels of resilience and fortitude worthy of recognition by Hollywood (not that I anticipate a call from Warner Brothers or Universal Studios anytime soon). I doubt a PG-13 movie centered on the fact that relationship banking saved thousands and thousands of businesses and millions of jobs is quite sexy enough for the movie elites in Tinseltown, but I still believe this story merits a feature film, or at least a Ken Burns documentary. I might just give Mr. Burns a call and suggest this project to him.
Since I’ve journeyed down the Hollywood rabbit hole, I might as well share one of my favorite movie quotes credited to my favorite fictitious movie character: Rocky Balboa. In the final film of the infamous Rocky series, Sylvester Stallone (aka Rocky) shared the following advice with his son:
“It ain’t how hard you can hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”
Our strong network of Kansas banks, from the largest to the smallest, from the most rural to the most urban, proved they could take a hit for the communities and customers they serve. That same network of Kansas banks also proved they could hit back and did so to the tune of providing 126,282 paycheck protection loans totaling $7,379,599,034 and counting. As I shared above, this pandemic arrived as a gut-punch followed by several straight right hands that would have been a knock-out blow for thousands of Kansas businesses had it not been for the left hook provided in the form of PPP loans implemented by Kansas banks. I’ll stop here with the movie analogies, but I’ll never stop being extremely proud of the critically important role Kansas banks played this past year.
On behalf of the entire KBA staff team, I want to thank you for your leadership, resilience and fortitude this past year. It’s an honor to work for this incredibly dynamic industry and we consider it our privilege to serve Kansas bankers. And never forget, we are always At Your Service!
KBA’s Annual Report is now available at ksbankers.com/wpcontent/uploads/2021AnnualReport.pdf.
