Kurt Warner and moderator, Cara Knight
Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner shared his story of perseverance, faith, and family with a packed house at Southern Arkansas University on Thursday evening, headlining the 21st Annual Farmers Bank & Trust Distinguished Speaker Series at the W.T. Watson Athletic Center.
Presented by Farmers Bank & Trust and the SAU Foundation, this year’s event raised more than $110,000, bringing the series’ total impact to more than $1.1 million raised for scholarships over 21 years through the Farmers Bank & Trust/Dr. Bob L. Burns Distinguished Speaker Scholarship Endowments. “So long after tonight is over, the generosity represented in this room will not go away, and it does not go unnoticed,” said Dr. Connie Wilson, SAU vice president for advancement.
SAU President Dr. Bruno Hicks welcomed the crowd and spoke about the depth of the University’s partnership with Farmers Bank & Trust. “Farmers Bank and Trust has touched virtually every facet of our campus,” Hicks said. “They’ve invested in scholarships for our students, provided internships and professional opportunities, and helped make transformational projects possible across the campus, from the Farmers Bank and Trust Trap Shooting Range to our new digital campus sign to a significant investment in Mulerider athletics.” He added, “For 21 years, this event has brought people together. It strengthens our community and, most importantly, creates opportunities for generations of SAU students.”
Hicks recognized this year’s Farmers Bank & Trust/Dr. Bob L. Burns Distinguished Speaker Series scholarship recipients, David Gordon, a senior instrumental music education major from Fairview, Oklahoma, and Jayla Carter, a senior mechanical engineering major from Camden, Arkansas. The evening also marked the debut of a new endowment: William Cattell, a graduate student from Texarkana, Arkansas, and dean of students at Arkansas Middle School, was recognized as the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Bob L. Burns Military Service Scholarship.
The evening also honored Bruce Maloch ahead of his retirement at the end of this year, after 40 years with Farmers Bank & Trust, where he began as a trust officer before rising to Vice Chairman and General Counsel. Farmers Bank & Trust CEO Chris Gosnell praised Maloch’s decades of community service. When asked what he wanted for his retirement, Maloch turned down multiple gift options and instead asked that his gift be donated to SAU. Bruce and his wife, Martha, were surprised with a $25,000 donation to SAU’s Department of Agriculture in support of the Bruce and Martha Maloch Endowment Fund. The bank commissioned a plaque that will hang in the agriculture building recognizing Maloch’s years of service and support for SAU.
Elizabeth Burns Anderson, a fifth-generation Magnolia banker who serves as senior vice president of Farmers Bank & Trust and executive director of the Farmers Bank Foundation, welcomed guests and shared the story of the bank’s founding ahead of its 120th anniversary.
Farmers Bank & Trust was founded in Magnolia in 1906, when the town had roughly 1,600 residents, no paved roads, and no traffic lights. Two local businessmen started the bank to help their neighbors, many of them farmers who needed credit to purchase mules and seed. “We didn’t start with a business plan,” Anderson said. “We started with a relationship with our neighbors.”
She said that spirit still defines the bank 120 years later. “Farmers Bank is only as good as the people who represent it every day,” she said, noting the bank has grown from one location and three employees to more than 40 locations and more than 420 employees while “we’ve watched technology change from a switchboard operator to a smartphone.”
That same relationship-building extends to Southern Arkansas University, Anderson noted, tracing back to an early bond issuance that helped bring SAU to the Magnolia community. Decades later, she said, the bank continues investing in that relationship through scholarships, campus projects, and support for SAU students.
Anderson then introduced the evening’s featured speaker, Kurt Warner.
In a conversation moderated by Farmers Bank & Trust’s Cara Knight, Warner traced his improbable journey from sitting on the bench for four years in college to becoming a two-time NFL MVP and Super Bowl champion. He spoke candidly about the year he spent stocking shelves at a grocery store after being cut by the Green Bay Packers. “I took the approach that before I left the store every morning, I was going to have the best-faced aisle in that store,” Warner said. “Whether anybody recognized it or not, this is about me choosing to live, act, and have a certain standard in everything that I do.”
Warner said the same doubt that once surrounded him in the grocery store followed him into the NFL. “That was exactly what everybody was saying about me when I got to the NFL,” he said, comparing his story to the biblical account of David and Goliath and reflecting on the skepticism that met his unlikely rise with the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf.”
Looking back on his later run to the Super Bowl with the Arizona Cardinals, then one of the NFL’s least successful franchises, Warner said the achievement carried a different kind of meaning than his championship season in St. Louis. “The sweetest thing is to be able to elevate the people that you’re with, the organization that you’re with, to a place that they’ve never been before,” he said.
Warner also spoke about his faith and family, including the journey that led him and his wife, Brenda, to found Treasure House, a supported living community in Arizona for young adults with disabilities, after their son Zach, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as an infant, graduated high school with few options for independence. “We watched our son thrive in ways that we could never imagine,” Warner said.
Asked what he hopes his legacy will be, Warner pointed past his football career. “I do hope that they talk about character and integrity and the way he lived his life and the impact that he had on people,” he said, “more than how well I threw a football.”
Over the past two decades, the Farmers Bank & Trust Distinguished Speaker Series has brought an impressive roster of guests to Magnolia, including Ozzie Smith, Tim Tebow, Archie Manning, Terry Bradshaw, Emmitt Smith, and more. This year’s event with Kurt Warner continued that tradition, reaffirming Farmers Bank & Trust’s enduring commitment to Southern Arkansas University and the students and community it serves.
About SAU:
Southern Arkansas University provides students with the complete college experience in a caring environment of service, innovation, and community. With more than 100 degrees across four distinct colleges and the School of Graduate Studies, SAU initiates new degree programs to meet the needs of today’s career and professional demands. To learn more about SAU, visit www.saumag.edu.
