CEO Departs Bank of Arkansas, Dunn Named Interim President

Wayne Stone, president and CEO of Bank of Arkansas, has left that institution. Bank officials would say only that Stone left to pursue other interests, but his departure on Aug. 25 was apparently sudden.

Jeff Dunn, senior vice president of commercial lending at the bank, has been named interim president while the search for a new president is under way.

Dunn worked at the Bank of Oklahoma in Tulsa from 1989 until 1991. He returned to Tulsa in 1992 after receiving his MBA and moved to the Arkansas bank in October 1995. A bank spokesman says it’s possible Stone’s successor will be someone within the organization.

Bank of Arkansas, which, until last May was Citizens Bank, is part of BOK Financial Corp. of Tulsa. Stone, who was president of Bank of Oklahoma until he moved to Arkansas late last year, had been chairman of the Arkansas bank’s board since 1993 when it was purchased by BOK.

Stone previously told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal that Bank of Arkansas would expand aggressively throughout the state with plans for new loan production offices in Fort Smith and Little Rock this year and new branches throughout the state in 1999. A bank spokesman says plans for the bank remain intact.