Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 15, 1995                   TAG: 9503150029
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BANK OF BUCHANAN TO TAKE NEW NAME

The change has been approved by the bank's board of directors and is subject to a vote at the annual meeting of shareholders in May. President H. Watts Steger III said the bank plans to begin operating under the new name by July.

``Our market area has expanded, and our name change reflects that reality,'' Steger said.

In six years, the bank has grown from one office in Buchanan with $30 million in assets to four offices and more than $70 million in assets at the end of 1994. The bank claims to have the largest market share of deposits among financial institutions in Botetourt County.

After operating for 90 years in Buchanan, the bank opened its first branch, at Daleville, in 1989. It bought an office in Eagle Rock in 1993 and opened a fourth office, in Troutville, in January.

The bank has 31 full-time employees, eight of them in the permanent office that opened last week in Troutville, where the bank has its administrative offices for marketing, internal audit and commercial and consumer loans.

Steger said the headquarters will remain in Buchanan.