Ken Mixon was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma in 1956.

Raised in Atoka, Oklahoma, and graduated from Atoka High School in 1974. Heattended Oklahoma Baptist University and graduated in 1977 with a degree in business administration.

In1977, Mixon started his banking career as an auditor with First National Bank in Oklahoma City. He worked as a teller and other positions in banks in Oklahoma before moving to Texas in 1982. At that time, he became cashier and chief financial officer at First City Bank in Beaumont, Texas. In 1985, he returned to Oklahoma to work for a couple of years at a bank in central Oklahoma.

In1987, he moved back to Texas for good when he accepted a position with First City Bank in Richardson. In 1989, he became president of First City Bank in Garland. From 1994 to 2012, he worked at a number of Dallas area banks. In2012, he became president and CEO of City National Bank in Corsicana, where he remains today.

Mixon is a member of First Baptist Church in Richardson and is very proud to be a Rotary member in Corsicana. One of his biggest passions is being involved in selecting the high school senior to receive the Corsicana Rotary Scholarship each year.

He is a big fan of the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Cowboys, and Oklahoma Sooners. He enjoys hunting and fishing and being with family and friends.

MEMOIR

Ken Mixon

Texas Banker / Oklahoma Hunter: (A Mostly True Story)

Paperback, 978-0-6927-6098-7, $23.00

September 2016

Ken Mixon claims that he comes from a family of storytellers, and he proves it with this entertaining memoir that is often informative and frequently laugh-out-loud funny.

While the book’s intended audiences are bankers and hunters (not necessarily in Texas and Oklahoma), many other readers can enjoy this pleasant, easy-to-read collection of “mostly true” stories. The chapters are drawn from Mixon’s life as a frequent state-border hopper.

After starting out as a young bank teller who came up $100 short his first day on the job (and was smart enough to get some quick training before beginning his second day), Mixon has spent more than forty years in bank operations, primarily in several parts of the Lone Star State. Most recently, he has been president and chief executive officer of City National Bank in Corsicana.

He grew up in Atoka, Okla., and learned to hunt deer, geese, and other animals in that state at an early age, with help from his father and other relatives and friends.

So, not surprisingly, his memoir’s chapters focus both on funny anecdotes and on important life lessons learned while banking and hunting. (For good measure, he also tosses in his favorite chili recipe and several events from his childhood that could have gotten him killed or at least in very big trouble.)

Many people do not understand exactly how a bank operates or stays in business, but Mixon offers clear and important insights into what happens at management levels. Being a bank officer, it turns out, can be a risky business, particularly when handling the accounts and loans of longtime, supposedly solvent, customers.

Early in his career, Mixon learned how to protect himself and his employers by staying focused on “the Five C’s of Credit, which stands for Character, Collateral, Capital, Capacity, and Conditions,” he explains. “Character is a borrower’s reputation. Collateral is what the borrower puts up for value to back the loan; collateral can be assets like cars, equipment, or property. Capital is how much the borrower has invested in the asset or business. Capacity is a measurement of the borrower’s ability to repay the loan. Conditions can be defined a number of different ways, but for now, let’s define it as the economic condition of the borrower.”

Mixon says, “I always look at things a little differently than other bankers.” And this tendency, plus his sharp focus on the five C’s, has kept him from falling victim to several cons that fooled some of his banking colleagues, badly damaged some banks, and actually put some out of business.

In Chapter 13, appropriately titled “Con Men,” Mixon explains that he has “seen all kinds of con men: small fraud specialists, roofing frauds, worm farm con artists (that is quite a story), and con artists who target community development.” He describes several encounters with con men who tried to swindle large sums of money from his employer, got turned down, but succeeded at other banks. Fortunately, some of the con men ended up in prison, he notes.

Hunters and others will easily relate to Mixon’s accounts of hunting game and fowl in Oklahoma. Indeed, most of his stories do not focus so much on the prey as on friends, family members, and Mixon himself as they prank each other, watch geese deliberately fly too high to get shot at, or try to do bow hunting while standing in a tree and hanging on with one hand.

Mixon’s book features a number of humorous illustrations by famed cartoonist Richard Stubler.

A stronger title for this book might have been “Skin(s) in the Game: The Mostly True Stories of a Texas Banker/Oklahoma Hunter.” Mixon mentions the “skin in the game” concept more than once in his book: “I am always concerned about ‘skin in the game’ — what a borrower has in the deal compared to what the bank has in the deal,” he writes. And, of course, there’s “skin in the game” of hunting. You have to have the right gear, permits, and training and know how to skin the animal you’ve killed.

Also, friends and family seldom prove to be the best editors and proofreaders of a book manuscript. There are skilled professionals for both tasks. Fortunately, Mixon’s completed book has only a few grammatical and punctuation glitches.

Texas Banker/Oklahoma Hunter is fun reading, and it imparts some important and memorable life lessons. You don’t have to be a banker or hunter to enjoy this book.

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