Mandly Board, organizer of the Exchange National Bank of Muskogee and President from the beginning to the present time, belongs to that class of substantial citizens who are the real promoters and up builders of a community. Steadfast in purpose, progressive in his views and at all times reliable in his methods, Mandly Board has ever been classed with those who have promoted the material and intellectual progress of the community and upheld its legal and moral status. A Virginian by birth, he claims Front Royal as the place of his nativity and the date as October 19, 1868.
He was born on the plantation belonging to his parents, Charles B. and Hannah S. (Iden) Board, and his youthful days were largely devoted to the acquirement of his education. His public school course was supplemented by study in the academy at Front Royal and later he took up the profession of teaching, which he successfully followed for six years, imparting readily and clearly to others the knowledge, that he had acquired. For ten years in early manhood he also engaged in farming. He had early become familiar with the best methods of tilling the soil and caring for the crops, while on his father’s plantation, and his efforts as an agriculturist were crowned with a substantial measure of success. Desirous, however, of entering the field of banking, he at length organized the Bank of Sturgeon at Sturgeon, Missouri, and was its cashier from 1904 until 1908.
The latter year witnessed the arrival of Mandly Board in Muskogee and here again he entered the field of banking by organizing the Oklahoma State Bank, which was the first banking institution in Oklahoma organized under the guaranty law. He became its assistant cashier and so continued until May, 1908, when he purchased the Eufaula National Bank, of which he became the President. It was in 1913 that he organized the Exchange National Bank of Muskogee and through the intervening period of eight years he has remained at the head of this institution, shaping and directing its policy and promoting its activities along lines of constant expansion. He is likewise a director of the Eufaula National Bank.
On the 18th of September, 1892, Mr. Board was married to Miss Lena Reid and they have two children: Martha Lillian, now the wife of J. Leon Brogan; and Mandly, Jr., born March 7, 1907. Mr. Board is frequently seen on the links, finding considerable pleasure in a game of golf and he belongs to the Country Club of Muskogee. In Masonry he has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and is also a member of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the Lions Club and is in hearty sympathy with the high purposes of that organization in regard to the material up-building of the city and its purposes in connection with Americanization and the maintenance of the high standards and principles upon which this Democratic government is based.