I think where things like CRA end up, if we had had what the activists
along those lines wanted, we'd have something that would be bad. If we'd
have had what the banks maybe wanted at the outset which was nothing,
that maybe was not good either. There were a lot of banks around the
country, including ours, that were already doing CRA type things without
being required too. There were a bunch that weren't. So I think you had
to accept some requirements along those lines to be part of an industry
that was doing what it should. But I don't consider that, I think we
learned to live with all that. I think we consider it, I don't think, I
certainly didn't during my time, consider it unreasonable. Although the
paperwork part of it was. Now that you have the form, there is more
concentration on form than substance. Your paperwork could look good,
and you still weren't doing much because you've got some numbers up. I
don't consider it unreasonable. There's always a problem of priorities
and time. We can't do everything
Page 30that we want to
do. It's sometimes have to say no. I can't do that. I don't have time to
do that. No we don't have any money left. We're up to our ears in
competitive banking. But there has been a time or two like back in the
'80s, John McNair that was running the North Carolina bank for me at
that time, was in charge of the branches. We were getting all these
requests coming and said, 'We don't have enough money to do all of
these. Let's do something we want to do.' So we sent out the word and
gathered, had a little study done. So we decided we wanted to start
giving scholarships to community colleges. They've never asked us for
anything. There were people going to these colleges a lot of them single
mothers that didn't have enough money. They were having to work. They
didn't have enough money to eat or have a car or a sitter or whatever,
day care. So we started giving scholarships, and this has been one of
the greatest things we've ever done. Some upwards of two thousand of
these scholarships since then across our one hundred counties. The other
things with the education system, we said, 'How do you, what's one of
the most important ingredients in having a good K through Twelve
education system, a good principal, great school.' We started the
Wachovia Principal of the Year program, which was a way to have a
competition and putting the spotlight on principals. Gave them $2500 for
their school and a $2500 bonus for them for the ones that were selected
principal. To do things like that, to reach out and try to deal with
some issue that presents itself that isn't coming at you is part of the
responsibility I think.