Bank trade groups and some of their members reacted bitterly Friday to the Treasury Department's plan to guarantee money market mutual funds, expressing concern that it ultimately would do more to undermine than help the financial services industry.

Vineyard National Bancorp in Corona, Calif., has promoted vice chairman Glen C. Terry to president and chief executive officer and announced plans to raise $250 million in a private placement of common stock and convertible senior secured notes.

First Chester County Corp. in West Chester, Pa., said Friday that it has agreed to buy American Home Bank in Mountville for $18.2 million in cash and stock.

First Citizens National Bank in Mansfield, Pa., has a deal to buy an Elmira Savings Bank branch in its hometown.

MainSource Financial Group Inc.'s chief executive, Archie M. Brown Jr., was not with the Greensburg, Ind., company at the time it struck a deal for 1st Independence Financial Group Inc. of Kentucky, but it is up to him to make the combination work.

First Georgia Community Corp. in Jackson entered an agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and state regulators to maintain sufficient capital, improve its underwriting, and evaluate its management team.

As top officials at the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the nation's largest banks struggled last weekend to save the doomed Lehman Brothers and worried over a half-dozen other larger institutions that are so interconnected that world markets could be shocked and easily destabilized by their collapse, I was reminded of a passage from William Manchester's book on the Middle Ages, "A World Lit Only by Fire": "Even the wisest of them were at a hopeless disadvantage, for their only guide in sorting it all out — the only guide anyone ever has — was the past, and the precedents are worse than useless when facing something entirely new."

To the Editor:

Market turmoil cuts two ways for community banks.

Security Bank Corp. in Macon, Ga., said Wednesday that H. Averett "Rett" Walker has resigned as its president and chief executive and as a director of the $2.9 billion-asset company and its Security Bank.

MIDWEST

San Antonio National Bank has agreed to acquire Bank of Texas Bancshares Inc. in Devine.

Stung by large losses on its investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Midwest Banc Holdings Inc. of Melrose Park, Ill., announced Tuesday that it intends to raise up to $125 million through a preferred stock offering.

Trident Bank in Atlanta would not be the first start-up bank to target doctors and other health-care professionals, but when it opens its doors early next year it could be the only one offering a payments tool that would give them easy access to patients' insurance data.

John M. O'Meara, the chairman and chief executive officer of First Midwest Bancorp Inc. in Itasca, Ill., died Saturday at the age of 62 after a long illness.

Pacific Mercantile Bancorp in Costa Mesa, Calif., is searching for a new chief credit officer for its banking unit.

When Stewart Greenlee joined CenterBank of Milford, Ohio, as its chief executive 18 months ago, he set an ambitious goal: Transform the tiny bank into a Cincinnati-area powerhouse with $1 billion of assets.

From Mark L. Johnston's point of view, the merger agreement that his mutual savings bank in Augusta, Maine, announced this week is not much different from any other one.

To the Editor: