Ceremony marks new bank for Tucumcari

A ceremonial groundbreaking was held Thursday for a new, full-service bank to be built in Tucumcari, though the actual construction began a little less than a week before.

The Bank of Tucumcari, a division of The Bank of Clovis, will be built in the 1600 block of South First Street.

Randy Harris, chairman and CEO of The Bank of Clovis, said it purchased the vacant lot from the Ronald and Gail Sanders Trust on Aug. 29 and began clearing it the next day.

Officials from the bank, the city, the Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce and contractors stood Thursday with shovels in front of a newly planted sign that states "Future home of Bank of Tucumcari."

Harris told the crowd of more than 30 people of his commitment to regional banking, offering customers competitive rates and his pledge to not sell out to another institution.

"We're tickled to death to be here," he said.

Garrett Baker, The Bank of Clovis' area market president for its Logan branch and the forthcoming Tucumcari branch, remarked near the end of the ceremony: "We want to bring community banking back to Tucumcari."

Harris said SS Kent Construction of San Jon and WWRC of Clovis will be among the contractors for the project.

The Bank of Clovis in February opened The Bank of Logan in a former New Mexico Bank & Trust building after the village had been without a bank for more than a year. It also is building a branch in Clayton.

In a phone interview before the ceremony, Baker said a modular bank building, with drive-up service included, would be installed at the Tucumcari site in as soon as two months. A more permanent structure would be built later.

"We're already servicing some customers partially out of Logan," Baker said. "But nobody in Tucumcari wants to drive to Logan every day if they need to make a deposit. So we think we can service the community and county better that way."

Baker was asked what prompted The Bank of Clovis to set up shop in Tucumcari.

"We just see an opportunity," he said. "I think there's just an opportunity to give people some small community banking feel again out there."

He said The Bank of Clovis had Quay County on its radar for a while.

"With the Logan building, it was a quicker path to get open. So we did that and then we got our feet underneath us.

"The whole time, we've known Tucumcari was in our plan. We just were waiting on the right time; it's hard to open two banks at once," he said.

Baker said The Bank of Tucumcari plans to hire at least three employees, though some workers at The Bank of Logan will work there, as well.

The Bank of Clovis was founded in 2000 and is chartered in the state of New Mexico, with deposits insured by the FDIC.