VP candidate Cheney has roots in Nebraska banking industry

Northwestern Financial Review, Aug 19, 2000

Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney has Nebraska roots with banking connections. The former congressman from Wyoming who served as Secretary of Defense under President George Bush is the grandson of a Nebraska banker.

Cheney's grandfather, Thomas Herbert Cheney, (pronounced CHEEN-ie by locals) helped run a bank in Summer, Neb. According to information provided by the Dawson County Historical Society in Lexington, Thomas Cheney briefly worked in banks in Armada and Miller, Neb., and later moved to Summer. While there, he and his family lived from 1895 to 1900 in quarters above Security State Bank, but the elder Cheney apparently did not work at that bank.

Thomas Cheney left Summer to work in Indiana and in Omaha, Neb., but returned in 1906 to become the cashier and manager at the newly formed Farmers & Merchants Bank. He served in that position until the bank's closing in December 1931.

Dick Cheney's father, Richard Herbert Cheney, was born in Summer in 1915, attended school there and worked for the Soil Conservation Service throughout Nebraska before being transferred in 1954 to Casper, Wyo., where the vice presidential nominee grew up.