With a goal of goosing loan growth, banks in California, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest are hiring commercial lenders who recently lost their jobs at Washington Mutual Inc.

GB&T Bancshares Inc. of Gainesville, Ga., is acquiring the $115 million-asset FNBG Bancshares Inc. of Duluth for $27.4 million.

NEW YORK - A day after Comptroller of the Currency John D. Hawke Jr. advised bankers to quit challenging the credit union industry's tax exemption, community bankers pledged to redouble their efforts to fight it.

An FDIC closing is a stab at the heart of all community banks.

NEW YORK - Everything one would expect was on tap at the American Bankers Association's convention here this week: sessions on trust-preferred securities, balance sheet management and profitability drivers, and speeches by banking regulators.

NEW YORK - The historian David McCullough, the keynote speaker for the opening general session at the American Bankers Association's convention here Sunday, said he has a "great abiding affection for small-town bankers."

WASHINGTON - In response to rising demand from large depositors, Promontory Interfinancial Network is once again raising the level of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. coverage it offers to customers of its member banks.

Roger Moyer, Sterling Financial Corp.'s president and chief executive, knew Sterling was getting a profitable company when it paid $30 million in stock and cash for Equipment Finance Inc. in February 2002.

After it dissolved its thrift charter and sold its branches, Bay View Capital Corp. of San Mateo, Calif., had planned a complete liquidation, but instead it wants to be a community bank again.

In the face of opposition from the Bush administration, a bipartisan group of lawmakers failed in their bid to extend a law that temporarily halved most of the fees that lenders pay to participate in the Small Business Administration's 7(a) loan program.

Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. of Lititz, Pa., is merging its eight community banks into three, all bearing the holding company's name.

Rabobank Group's deal to buy a Farm Credit System lender has prompted Congress to consider the first changes to the Farm Credit Act in more than 30 years.

Wells Financial Corp. of Wells, Minn., is planning to go private to get out from under the regulatory requirements of being a public company.

Bancshares of Florida Inc. in Naples has canceled its deal to buy Horizon Financial Corp. of Pembroke Pines.

A Georgia bank credits equipment it installed a year and a half ago for the customers who are flocking to its branches.

What can business executives and students learn from community banks?

Iberiabank Corp. of Lafayette, La., is acquiring the $265 million-asset American Horizons Bancorp Inc. of Monroe for $48 million in cash and stock.

Midwest Banc Holdings Inc. of Melrose Park, Ill., has announced that Brad A. Luecke, its president and chief executive officer, will retire Oct. 6.

SOUTHEAST