FLORENCE — Edward Fennel Mauldin wasn’t able to finish college but that didn’t hinder his drive to succeed.
“My father was an orphan,” said Bank Independent President Macke Mauldin. “He came to live with a family friend in Leighton named Ed Fennel, his namesake. He later served in the Navy through the V-12 program during World War II, and when the war ended, he came home and enrolled at Auburn.”
His time at college was brief, however. Mr. Fennel died and Edward returned to Leighton to run the family farm.
“He always cherished the days he spent in college,” Mauldin said. “And he always said any exposure to education is better than no exposure. He’s also proof that you don’t have to have a degree to be successful, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the chance.”
Mauldin said his parents left a lasting legacy of investing in people and the community.
“He was a very successful man and my mother was, too,” Mauldin said. “But they worked well together and made a tremendous amount of success. And we’re benefiting from it right now in everything that we do.
“His legacy, my mother’s legacy, my grandfather’s legacy, we’re trying to honor the legacy that they provided us.”
That legacy was honored with the announcement of a partnership with the University of North Alabama, through which Bank Independent customers who enroll at UNA can receive a 20% scholarship toward undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral degree programs.
Rick Wardlaw, CEO of Bank Independent, said the initiative reflects Bank Independent’s long-standing mission to invest in the people and communities it serves.
“Through this scholarship with the University of North Alabama, we’re proud to help remove some of the financial barriers to higher education,” he said. “It’s one more way we’re committed to empowering our customers and supporting their goals, today and for generations to come.
“We’re part of the community. We live, breathe and serve those communities.”
Mauldin said it was an easy decision to partner with UNA on the scholarship program. In 2023, Bank Independent and UNA began offering scholarships to bank team members and team member families.
“We were talking about our values and our mission, and UNA came to us and said, ‘What if you do this and we do that?’” Mauldin said. “And there it was — a 20 percent discount for all of our customers. We said that makes a lot of sense, and we did it.”
Employees were among the first to hear the news. According to Mauldin, two customers had already been approved for the discount before the announcement went public.
“We had two people already approved by the end of the day,” Mauldin said. “They were not team members, just customers, and they were approved within 30 minutes.”
The program is available to eligible students regardless of whether they reside in Alabama as long as they’re customers of Bank Independent. It’s another step in the bank’s larger mission to support personal and professional development across the communities it serves.
Mauldin said the scholarship program fulfills their mission of making a positive difference in the communities they serve but also honors the legacy that has been part of the bank since it started in 1947.
“At the end of the year of 1947, we were one million in total assets and now we’re almost $2.8 billion in total assets,” he said. “It’s a tribute to their legacy. It’s a tribute to the team that we have today and the tens of thousands of people in between that work with Bank Independent.”
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