BHS to get student-operated bank in fall

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

April 16, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Bemidji High School students and staff may have the chance next year to eat lunch, cash a check, take out a loan and open a savings account -- all during their lunch hour and without leaving the school campus.

State Sen. Dave Ten Eyck, DFL-East Gull Lake, announced Tuesday in a news release he successfully amended a provision to the Senate's Omnibus Banking Bill which would allow Bemidji High School to open a student-operated bank next fall.

"Our amendment establishes a two-year pilot project specifically for Bemidji High School," Ten Eyck said. "If this works well and is successful, I can imagine it expanding to other high schools around the state."

The project would be the first student-run bank to open in Minnesota, according to BHS business teacher Jane Singer, who is overseeing the project.

Singer said the bank would probably operate during lunch hours and would be staffed entirely by students who would be supervised by either a school employee or an employee from First National Bank -- the district's partner in the venture.

The bank's operating guidelines were created by students, school officials, the Bemidji School Board and First National officials.

According to the guidelines, students and district employees could open savings accounts, take out small loans and cash checks at the bank, Singer said.

The students involved would be required to file an annual report summarizing the bank's operations with the state's commissioner of commerce.

Singer said the creation of the bank was an outgrowth of a banking course taught at the High School and based on a model of a student-operated bank in Dickinson, N.D.

"We were made aware of the bank in Dickinson by Superintendent Rollie Morud, who used to be superintendent of that school," Singer said.

She said students started the project in November, and since have visited First National Bank, "shadowed" bank employees and heard lectures on bank operations by various bank employees.

Although legislative approval may not have been necessary for the students to operate the bank, Singer said they were taking no chances.

"We wanted to do this with the approval of not only the state Legislature, but also of the Minnesota Banking Association," she said. "I'm not sure, but I think the bank in North Dakota ran into some trouble for not seeking approval first."

Sue Engel of First National Bank said the measure has been introduced to both houses of the Legislature and will soon be entering committee hearings, and passage of the project looked promising.

More details about the project would be announced after official approval of the idea, she said.

"This gets students involved in financial activities. They get a background in financial matters they need to be good citizens and to operate in society," Singer said. "Financial institutions are one area that almost everyone has to deal with in their life."