ROGERSVILLE — What do you do after retiring from a job you’ve held for more than 50 years?
Ada Rogan said she’s going to Disney World.
Friday evening, Rogan, 72, locked the doors at the Capital Bank in Rogersville for the last time after 50 and a half years of service to the community as a bank teller — mostly at the same branch.
She’s not a Super Bowl MVP, but Rogan said winning a local newspaper’s “Best of the Best” contest in the bank teller category for 12 of the past 14 years should be enough to justify her first trip to Disney.
Throughout the day Friday, friends and colleagues visited Capital Bank, 210 W. Main St., Rogersville, to celebrate the end of Rogan’s half century behind the counter.
Many of those well-wishers Friday were customers she has served the entire 50 years since starting as a bank teller in 1962.
“A lot of them told me that after I retired they were going to leave and start using a different bank,” Rogan told the Times-News Sunday. “Some of them were crying, and they always told me that when I left they would leave too. I hope they don’t. It’s my bank too, and I’m not changing.”
Rogan added, “A lot of the people I saw the day I retired were people my dad actually talked into coming to the bank. It was their families who stayed with us over the years, and we became sort of a family.”
In 1962, Rogan started as a bank teller at the same Main Street branch in Rogersville across from the post office that she retired from Friday. Back then it was called First National Bank.
Her father and uncle helped found the bank, and her uncle was the first president, so it was a family business.
Beginning in 1983, the bank changed names multiple times: First Commerce Bank, City and County Bank, Hamilton Bank, SunTrust Bank, Hawkins County Bank, Green Bank. Today it’s called the Capital Bank.
Rogan spent most of her career in the Rogersville branch. Her only time away was 10 years helping start up a sister branch in Surgoinsville in the 1980s.
Among her career highlights was selling 133 new accounts in 2007 for a contest, which won her a trip to Arizona.
In 1994, Rogan submitted an entry for a bank slogan contest. Her winning entry was, “Where Friendly Service Never Goes out of Style.”
She said she likes to think she kept friendly service in style for her 50 years on the job.
Rogan witnessed two bank robberies in her career. The first was at the Surgoinsville branch on Sept. 1, 1987.
“I was in the bank all alone,” she recalled. “The manager had gone to lunch. (The robber) had a brown paper bag (hiding a gun in his hand) and sweat was pouring off his face. He said, ‘I won’t hurt you’. After I gave him the money out of one drawer he pointed the gun to the next drawer. He had cased the bank out, I believe.
“He made me lay down on the floor. I thought he was going to shoot me. When he was gone I called the Rogersville branch and told them I had been robbed, but I had lost my voice, so they knew something bad had happened.”
The robber got away with $11,000, but he was caught after a bank robbery in Weber City, Va., six months later.
The second robbery occurred around 2000 in the Rogersville branch when the bank was SunTrust.
“I didn’t realize that the gentleman had robbed the teller next to me until it was over,” she said. “She (the other teller) gave him marked money, but I don’t believe they ever caught him.”
Rogan said she never intended to stay in the same job for 50 years. She was happy there, the customers were happy with her, and there never was a good reason to leave.
“It’s a good place to work, and Rogersville is a wonderful town to grow up in and make a living,” Rogan said. “I like people, and they would do anything I asked them. If we had a contest going and I needed new accounts opened, they would do it. I don’t know why they loved me so.
“I hope that I’ve been able to make some money for them by helping them.”