Fast 15: Brooke Moreton

For a girl who was “very much into cheerleading and dance,” but couldn’t wait to get to the family farm every day, it’s hard to imagine Brooke Moreton finding a better job.

Moreton, manager at FNBFS’ Chaffee Crossing branch, enjoys dressing the part of a banker. With so much of her business based in agricultural lending, though, she’s always ready to make a
quick transition.

“Obviously you show up as a banker in your dress clothes,” Moreton said, “but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to go down to the sale barn on a Monday morning … because that’s where I can find the majority of my customers on a Monday morning.

“So I always keep my muck boots and a pair of jeans in the back of my car, because you never know.”

FNBFS seemed to know what they had in Moreton, though, when they hired her in the summer of 2009. She had worked for the bank as a seasonal teller during high school and college, then spent three years working for Arvest Bank in Fayetteville.

Moreton earned a degree in communication disorders at the University of Arkansas in 2006 — intending to become a speech pathologist — but found an offer from Arvest “pretty hard to pass up” after also working there as a part-time teller. Soon, she was doing credit analyst work, writing loan proposals and dipping into ag lending.

“That’s where I really saw that this is what I wanted to do,” she said.

Marriage took her back to the
River Valley and FNBFS, where Moreton started in the loan review department, then became merchant services coordinator before taking an ag lending job. That was in December 2009,
and a little more than a year later,
Moreton was offered the Chaffee Crossing job.

She spent time in Barling while the branch was built, then opened it in March 2012. Moreton couldn’t seem happier, and gets an added farm fix by helping her in-laws with their beef cattle operation.

“In fact, we’re just getting ready to sell here in a couple of weeks, so this weekend we will be working cows all weekend,” she said, laughing, recently.

Away from work, Moreton serves on the Junior League of Fort Smith and Single Parent Scholarship Fund boards. She’s also active in the Dollars and $en$e program at Barling Elementary School and the University
of Arkansas at Fort Smith’s Collegiate Ambassador Board.

Moreton plays in a competitive tennis league, too, but saves most of her spare time for “the light of my world,” her 1-year-old daughter.