Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 25, 1993 TAG: 9303250135
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HEADIN' FOR THE RIVER
This is no April Fool hoax.Trudy Albert, Dominion Bank's customer service manager, will end her banking career April 1.
It will be exactly 45 years from her first day as a part-time bookkeeper at the former Farmers and Merchants Bank in downtown Blacksburg.
Albert, 62, has become a fixture in downtown Blacksburg, greeting and waiting on customers at Dominion's two offices.
Customers and co-workers say she will be irreplaceable.
"The bank just won't seem the same without her. It'll be like the bank not having a front door," said Blacksburg lawyer and native Marcus Long Jr.
"She's as much an institution as the bank itself."
Jeanne Miller has worked with Albert for 38 years, and the pair has seen the bank change from Farmers And Merchants to First National Exchange Bank to Dominion Bank and now First Union Bank.
"We're going to miss her so much," Miller said.
"It just won't be the same without her friendliness and smiling face."
The bank has declared April 1 "Trudy Albert Appreciation Day."
Lenore Linkous, branch manager of the downtown office, said Albert's best attribute is her ability to relate.
"Trudy talks to everyone who comes through the door. She never meets a stranger," said Linkous, her co-worker of 23 years.
"She taught me everything I know."
At 62, Albert more than qualifies for the bank's retirement.
Still, her last day of work will come three years earlier than she had planned, thanks to Dominion's recent merger with First Union Corp.
Albert's position, like thousands of other Dominion jobs, was eliminated by First Union.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank offered her another job, but Albert decided to call it quits.
"I hadn't planned to leave this soon, but I'm looking forward to it now that's it's so close," she said.
Next Thursday will mark the end of a banking career that started when Albert was still in high school.
In the late 1940s, Albert's mother was co-manager of the cafeteria at Blacksburg High School.
It was 17-year-old Trudy's job to carry the cafeteria's money to the Farmers and Merchants Bank in downtown Blacksburg every day.
Albert got to know the bank president and a short time later he offered her a job.
Her first day as a part-time bookkeeper was April 1, 1948 - two months before she graduated from high school.
Over the years, Albert's job title has changed so many times that even she has a tough time remembering all her positions.
She has been teller, head teller, vault custodian, adjuster and branch manager - and probably several more.
A lifelong resident of Blacksburg, Albert was born in the Mount Tabor area and now lives in the Longshop-McCoy community with her husband, Jule, a retired lab specialist at Virginia Tech.
The couple's son, Jule Jr., owns the Bug Shop, an automobile repair shop in Montgomery County.
Albert said she will spend her retirement days working in her garden and enjoying other outdoor activities.
"I'm going to get me a fishing rod and head down to the river," she said with the same smile that has satisfied so many customers in the past 45 years.