Higdon Swatts Page Two

 

Many Port St. Joeians don't know that Telan Federal Credit Union was responsible for Tyndall Federal having a branch Credit Union office in Port St. Joe.

Back in the early 1960s, employees of Apalachicola Northern Railroad and St. Joseph Telephone Company, being sister companies owned by St. Joe Paper Company, met together and formed a committee to look into the possibility of establishing a Federal Credit Union for their respective employees of both companies.  B. A. Pridgeon Sr. and R. H. "Red" Brinson Jr. from the railroad company along with B. A. Pridgeon Jr., Lawrence Bowen Sr., and I believe J. L. Morris from the telephone company met to explore the rules of the National Federal Credit Union Association as to what would be required of them to be approved by the Association.

One of the first items of business was to get approval from higher management of the two companies to make payroll deductions and to be supportive of the efforts being made by the committee to establish the credit union.  Before the application could be forwarded to the Federal Administration, a name for the credit union had to be selected.  The committee decided on the name Telan Federal Credit Union.  The name Telan was derived from Telephone and A. N. Railroad.  To make a long story short, Telan Federal Credit Union was approved by the Federal Administration and began its services to the employees of both companies in about 1961.  The Board of Directors established that because of the number of employees that were employed by each of the two companies, two (2) Directors would be elected to serve from the Railroad Company and two would be elected to serve from the Telephone company.  Both companies shared a common bond because both were sister companies owned by the same parent company (St., Joe Paper Company).  Approval by the national administration required that the field of membership have such a common bond. 

Telan Federal operated for some thiry-something years, affording its members limited banking services such as small personal loans, car loans, boat loans, and loans for appliances but home and property loans could not be made due to the fact that the total assets of the credit union were limited.  The membership was limited to employees and their families but because each of the two companies had a relatively small number of employees, the growth of total assets was potentially limited.  State and Federal banking laws restricted loans made to its members to only 75% of the credit union's total assets.  As time passed, more and more members were requesting home and property loans and of course, these types of loans just could not be made due to the lack of assets.

Over the course of many years, some of the Credit Union's Board Directors were re-elected, some resigned, new ones were appointed to fill unexpired terms, and new ones were elected for two-year terms.  The last group of directors to serve included myself as President, Jean McMillian as Vice-President, and I forget the third one from the Telephone Company.  Charlie Wall and R. H.  "Red" Brinson were the elected board members representing the Railroad Company.  We, as a board, had decided that the only way that we could grow our assets was to try to merge with other local credit unions.  We tried unsuccessfully to merge with Basic Magnesia and Gulf County Teachers Credit Unions but were denied by the Federal Credit Union Association.  We also contacted St. Joe Papermakers Federal Credit Union and could not come to terms with their board.  We then decided to contact Tyndall Federal Credit Union to see if they were interested in a merger with us and also establishing a branch office in Port St. Joe.  Charlie Wall and I made an appointment with Tyndall's Chairman along with their President for the purpose of discussing such a merger.  Charlie and I met with both the Chairman and the President and found them very receptive to the idea and we made a tentative agreement for them to come to Telan's Annual Membership Meeting for the purpose of having them explain how the merger could benefit our members.  The basic agreement was to assign Telan's assets over to Tyndall Federal and have them take over our office in Port St. Joe as a Tyndall Federal Credit Union Branch Office and to agree to keep our manager, Christine Cain for a period of five (5) years.  Tyndall's team came to our annual membership meeting about two months later and explained to our members all of the benefits of Tyndall Federal Credit Union and how the merger could benefit Port St. Joe. A vote was held at the meeting and the merger was passed by 93% of those voting in favor. 

Prior the the annual meeting word had gotten out in Port St. Joe that such a merger was being discussed and soon we, as board members began receiving calls from other local bank directors trying to discourage us from going forward with plans for the merger.  I even had one go as far as to tell me that he would have me fired from my job with the Telephone Company if I didn't put an end to our plans for the merger.  We thanked them all for their concern but assured them that we would make our decision in the best interest of our membership.  We did just that and the rest is now just another piece of Port St. Joe history.