The Mer Rouge State Bank will soon lose a valuable employee with the retirement of executive vice-president Charles Burns. He will hang up his keys to the vault at the end of December but will remain on the board of directors.

Burns has been a valuable asset to Morehouse Parish since moving here in 1966. He and his wife, Jenny, raised two children in Bastrop and are members of Bonita Rd. Baptist Church. His son, Dennis, works for the US Postal Service and is the father of two boys, Chad and Tyler.

Penny, his daughter, is married to Todd Jones and is the mother of Trevor and Lisa. She is an occupational therapist and works for Morehouse Rehab and teaches at ULM.

Burns began his banking career in 1976 at Bastrop National Bank as a loan officer. He worked his way up the ladder from loan officer to assistant vice-president to vice-president. When BNB merged with Hibernia in 1994, Burns decided to make a change, as he loves working with people in the home-town bank atmosphere and in January of 1995, he joined the team at Mer Rouge State Bank.

“I have always loved community banks and think they are the best place to work,” said Burns. “There is more dealing one-on-one with people and that is what I like to do.”

Burns is very grateful for all the friends that began as customers he has made over the years and appreciates the loyalty they have shown him by following him to Mer Rouge.

Over the years, Burns has attended many banking schools and classes. For three years, he took banking courses at ULM at night and also graduated from the School of Banking in Lafayette. He has seen many changes in the banking world over the past 32 years and thinks that it is time to turn it over to the “young folks.”

“There comes a time when you just know it’s time to go home,” he said. “I will most defiantly miss my customers, though.”

He won’t just be sitting around the house, though.

He and Jenny love Bluegrass music and while they have no set plans on traveling, they do plan on attending more Bluegrass festivals and make more use of their home-on-wheels.

Not only has Burns been working in banking for 32 years, he also has been drinking coffee every morning with a group of men for that same length of time.

“We used to meet to a local restaurant every morning at about 5:30 but couldn’t afford the .25 a cup, so we started meeting at Zane’s [Tubbs] place everyday,” said Burns.

There have been men come and go from this morning group, who solve the majority of the world’s problems on a daily basis, but the core group has remained the same: Burns and Tubbs as well as Jamie Patrick, Lynn Eppinette and James and Buddy Cummins.

Burns hates to see this tradition come to an end but doesn’t think he will make it up that early once he retires.

The Mer Rouge State Bank will honor Burns with a reception from 3 - 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at the bank. The public is invited to attend this reception, and Burns wishes for the gift of everyone’s presence instead of any other gifts.