A Conversation With ... Delilah Johnson

It is a bank club for customers age 50 and older. When we first started in 1986, it was for people 65 and older. People are retiring earlier now, so we’ve lowered the age.

Membership is set up through a checking account, and we have two accounts … Summit Checking (requires) them to open with a $100 minimum balance, and they get a free box of checks, but that one really doesn’t have the benefits they can get with Summit Gold. With Summit Gold, there’s no minimum balance, and there’s a $4 monthly membership fee. With it, they get unlimited free checks, prescription drug discounts, discounts on eye wear, accidental death insurance, a medical emergency data card and payment card protection. We have more than 14,000 members.

What about special club events?

Each year we have a member-guest appreciation event. At that event, we give out our upcoming year’s trip calendars. We usually plan two (longer) trips, a week or two weeks, and three or four day trips. We try to plan (so) that anyone can afford one or the other … if they want to travel. When our members take trips with us, we send out evaluation forms … and we give them a place on there where they can put input for what they’d like to see for future trips.

We’ve been hosting monthly travel seminars through Great Southern Travel. Also, due to so many issues facing seniors, like Medicare Part D, we’ve hosted seminars on (those issues) as well through our insurance and investment services department.

With the lowered age requirement, not all members are retirees. Is that a challenge in terms of events and benefits?

We have realized that people are retiring in their early 50s, but then you have those who are still working in their early 70s, so we have a big variety. The Summit Club … is an awesome opportunity … because we do so many different things.

What’s on the horizon for Summit Club and its members?

We are planning our member-guest appreciation party for Oct. 22. It’s our 20th year, so we’re going to really have a great event this year. We usually have more than 2,000 there; it’s at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts. We’re planning a 13-day Alaska trip in 2007, and it will be a cruise and land tour. It’s going to be really great. We’ve got a lot of members who want an Alaska cruise.

Serving as the director is a fairly new position for you; how did you get to this point in your career?

I started as Summit Club director May 1, but I have been with Great Southern before. I was actually with Great Southern when we developed Summit Club. In 1986, I was with Great Southern as a branch manager and was involved with setting up the program with marketing. I started in banking my senior year in high school with the Cooperative Occupational Education program, working with Seymour Bank in Seymour, where I live. Then they hired me full time, and I worked there … until 1985, at which time I took a position with Great Southern. I was with Great Southern from 1985 to 1992, and then in 1992, I returned to the bank in Seymour because my son was getting ready to start school … and I wanted to be local for him for school activities.

I’ve always wanted to be Summit Club director. I have always loved that position. (My son) graduated in May 2005, and this position became available this spring. The timing was just perfect.

Tell us about your family and what you do for fun.

I married my high-school sweetheart, Greg. We’ve been married for 24 years. We graduated high school in May of 1982 and got married July of that same year. Five years later, we had our 2-pound miracle baby boy, Heath. He’s 19 now. He’s got his pilot’s license and is going to school at Delta Connection Academy in Florida.

We are very involved in mission work through our local church, Seymour Church of the Nazarene.

We have taken several mission trips out of the country and within the states. I am missions president and work-and-witness coordinator through my church. I love doing the Lord’s work and giving people hope.