Garrick Moritz, Gazette
Rod Wolforth is down to mere days left of the job after spending a lifetime as a Banker. The Gazette caught up with him on Friday, Jan. 12.
“My first real job when I was a senior in High School, was as a back teller back in 1975,” he said. “When I retire on the twenty-sixth, that will mean I’ve been in banking for 49 years in South Dakota. With Monday [Jan. 15th] being Martin Luther King Day, and a holiday, my wife [Polly] pointed out to me that today will be the start of my last 10 days on the job. I don’t really quite know how to process that. Yes, I’m excited to retire and I think it is time, I’m 67, but at the same time I’m not sure what it will be like for me not to be working as a banker anymore.”
Wolforth is an Aberdeen area native and a proud graduate of Northern State University. Above his desk are photographs of his family homesteads from his mother and father’s side of his family, held in frames made of the wood and barbed wire from both home family places. Wolforth said he’s been cleaning out his offices for his successor, and finding some wonderful memories of all the people and places he’s worked at, seen, or been to as a SD Banker.
“I’ve done about everything in this field that there was to do,” he said. “I’ve been a small hometown banker, and worked for a larger corporate bank. I spent a number of years in credit administration, which is what I like to call, the dark-side of the banking industry. I’ve been active in both of the banking associations that exist in South Dakota, both the Independent Community Bankers, serving as president of that organization in 1992-'93 and two terms on the board of directors for the SD Bankers Association from '95 to 2001. I’ve also served on the Ag Banking as chairman and had a 25-year period on the Ag Banking committee. I’ve served on a number of banking legislative committees as well, working with politicians on both the local state and national offices.”
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