OROVILLE – Helen Casey, a familiar sight at the Oroville Branch of Umpqua Bank, will be putting in her last day on Friday, April 4, after 54 years in banking.

Casey was born in Omak, Washington and raised in the Methow on the family ranch, graduating from Winthrop High School. That was before the Winthrop and Twisp School Districts combined into the Liberty Bell School District.

While at Winthrop School District, the high school burned down, and Casey and her fellow classmates went to school in Quonset huts, she said.

Following graduation, Helen got married to Ray Casey, whose father worked at the fish hatchery in Winthrop. The couple soon started a family and had their first child.

“My very first job was taking care of the kids,” she said.

The couple moved to Redmond, Oregon in 1964 and her husband worked as a Smoke Jumper with the U.S. Forest Service. While there they added two more children and she worked as a bookkeeper for Safeway for six years.

Then they moved to Shelton where Ray worked Fire Control for the U.S.F.S. ranger district. She got her first job with a bank in 1971 with Puget Sound National Bank.

“I started on a gray day on Nov. 1st and no sun appeared until January,” she said.

Casey said she started on a day when it was payday for those on the Washington State payroll and lineups were going out the doors and at the drive-up window.

“I watched in awe. Adair, my new supervisor, was stern on the exterior and had a heart of gold. Day two put me on the line counting cash to those wonderful customers. I had a Burroughs teller machine that would post our receipts and savings passbooks,” she said, adding they would file checks for statements when they came back from Tacoma.

She said one time there was an older customer who cashed his retirement checks at the bank each month. He came in one day wearing a black trench coat and she talked him into speaking with the manager and the trust officer about setting up an account for him.

“Out of that coat came over $200,000,” she said.

Casey says she found banking both rewarding and challenging but it turned out to be what she enjoyed doing for the next 50-plus years.

In December of 1975, the family moved to Tonasket with her husband working for the Tonasket Ranger District.

“I hounded the local branch manager, Ed Merril, for a job… had to take a turn in Omak for Mid Valley Bank before I got back to Tonasket.

“It was Omak Stampede weekend and Indian per-capita…. Someone said here are your keys and cash drawer. I survived the first couple of days. I learned a lot. All of our work went to Seattle first to process, coming back to file and do statements. There was a lot of hand posting, then the proof machines came,” said Casey, adding, “I could fix one but did not like to run one.”

Then in September, she was offered a position as a supervisor at the Mid Valley branch in Tonasket.

“There were so many changes in banking. The age of computers in the early 80s sent me to Wenatchee Valley College in Omak to take a computer class,” she said.

When she asked Kit Arbuckle, who taught the class, how she could get the staff familiarized with working with computers he told her to teach them to play solitaire.

“Well, it did make a difference,” she said.

She saw many other challenges, including working for a failing bank and interest rising and falling.

“These were some very hard times for folks, 13 percent time deposits and 22 percent loan rates. Our community was challenged.”

She said Mid Valley Bank branches started a new life under a new name and with new faces.

“We all applied for our positions and by November we were in our new positions. We cared for the customers and the community cared for us,” she said.

The bank did an addition to the Tonasket branch and Casey recalls the contractors were “not too excited about dealing with a woman.”

“It was a nice fit adding to our space, the old bookkeeping room went to become our ATM (Automated Teller Machine) room,” said Casey.

After Mid Valley Bank failed, she continued to work at the same location, but the name of the bank changed several times.

“Survived 11 or 12 name changes and I had staff who were wonderful people, having the trust and respect of the community in which we served, truly making a difference,” she said.

When the bank changed to Wells Fargo, Casey said an executive came one day and asked about her staff and the turnover rate.

“Well, my last hire just had her 10th anniversary,” she told him, adding that the exec was shocked that she could keep her staff for so long.

In 2010, Casey went to Oroville to manage the Sterling Bank branch, now Umpqua Bank.

“I was just going to stay a few years. It was another bank that had undergone a few name changes. As I retire, the last hire has been here for 10 years,” she said.

Casey said the thing that made the difference was the fact that their team made a difference in people’s lives.

“Caring, trusting; community involvement; trust and respect are earned, but the bottom line was we will always be ‘humble and kind,’” she said.

In addition to banking, Casey has been involved in her community in several ways. She has been a chamber of commerce member and worked with the Comanchero’s Founders Day Rodeo. She served for 24 years as a North Valley Hospital District Commissioner and 23 years on the Tonasket High School Advisory Board, as well as volunteering at the school wherever she was needed. In addition, she worked with the Omak Performing Arts Center (PAC) and served on various boards with the Tonasket Community Church. She also was part of the early Economics Alliance Board and the American Cancer Society Relay for Life.

She and her husband Ray have been married for 63 years and together, they moved 17 times before moving back to Okanogan County and settling in Tonasket. They have three children, Arnold (Peggy), who is deceased, Tim (Teresa) and Dianna (Tim).

The Caseys plan on doing some traveling and their first stop will be to Florida, where her daughter Dianna and son-in-law Tim Naillon live. While the Caseys have always enjoyed camping, she says their days of pulling a long camp trailer are over.

The new manager at the Oroville Branch will be Jeff Click, according to Casey, who wishes him the best of luck.

The staff at Umpqua Bank has invited people to stop by and celebrate Casey’s retirement on Friday, April 4 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.