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Wlaf1450‘The bank was packed my first day, and I had had no training as a teller’- Mildred Bullard Asbury
LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF)- LMU’s loss was Peoples Bank of the South’s gain when Mildred Bullard, before marrying Hutch Asbury, decided not to return to college for her sophomore year. “I came to work at the bank on summer break in 1957, and before school started back, I asked Mildred Reynolds if I could just stay on at the bank. She said yes,” said Bullard-Asbury.
To keep down the confusion with multiple Mildreds at the bank, Mildred Asbury was referred to by her maiden name, or at that time her last name, “Bullard.”
Asbury tells the story of her first day as if it was this morning. “Dr. Lee J. Seargeant came into the bank, and the first thing he asked before the crowded lobby was, “Who is that girl in the yellow dress? And that was me. After saying, you’re gonna wait on me, he was my very first customer,” said Asbury.
Starting as a teller with no training, Asbury had quite the introduction to the banking industry. Though it did not take her long to figure it all out.
Born at Speedwell and raised on a farm, the 1956 Powell Valley High School graduate has worked in three different Peoples Bank buildings. Asbury started in the original building, then the green building that was built in 1960, and now in the newest Peoples Bank main offices building in downtown La Follette. That also includes working for three different bank presidents, G. B. Gallaher, John T. “Jack” Reynolds and current president, David Reynolds, appointed in 2006. David Reynolds was not even born when Asbury started at the bank.
Asbury is organized. From her every Saturday at 9am hair appointments to the neatest arranged desk in the building, it shows.
Her career began with pencil and paper and now days, it’s all about computers. There were no electric adding machines when Asbury started. “We had to key the number in and pull the lever,” said Asbury.
She points to COVID as making the biggest change during her career. “I would open accounts at the drive-thru window rather than at my desk,” said Asbury.
Her late husband, Hutch, told some of his fellow state workers one day when he saw Mildred walking across the street, “there goes the woman I’m going to marry.” At the time, she didn’t even know him. They eventually began dating and were married in 1963.
“Had I known what Hutch said about me being the woman he was going to marry, I would have had some fun with him over that,” she said. She and Hutch have two daughters, both with doctorates, Susan, PhD, and Kara, MD. Hutch passed in 1995.
From all indications, the girl in the yellow dress is off to a good start to her 70th year today at Peoples Bank of the South. (06/04/2026-6AM-PHOTOS COURTESY OF WLAF’S CHARLIE HUTSON)