The Southwest Ledger

First Financial Bank, the Abilene-based subsidiary of First Financial Bankshares, which operates 79 banking locations across Texas, named Marshall Morris chairman, president and CEO of its Abilene region, effective September 1, 2026. Morris joined the bank fifteen years ago as a credit analyst and most recently served as the region's president. He succeeds Marelyn Shedd, who announced she will retire December 31, 2026, after thirty-five years with the bank.

The bank also moved three bankers into senior commercial relationship-manager roles. Dayton Borger, a fifteen-year veteran who had been a senior vice president, relationship manager and branch manager, becomes executive vice president, senior relationship manager for commercial, effective September 1. Evan Harris, who joined twenty years ago and most recently led real estate lending, becomes executive vice president, senior relationship manager for construction and development. Tracy Howle, who joined in 2025 as a senior portfolio manager in San Angelo and has more than three decades in banking, becomes an executive vice president and commercial relationship manager on September 8.

A regional chief executive change at one of the larger community-bank franchises headquartered in Texas resets who leads commercial coverage for the Abilene region. The senior commercial relationship-manager seats were filled from inside the bank, by lenders with fifteen and twenty years there — the pattern in markets where experienced commercial bankers are scarce and slow to replace from outside.

The Huntington National Bank, the Columbus, Ohio–based bank, named Blake Absher its Central Texas division president, a role covering Austin, San Antonio, Waco and Bryan/College Station. Absher has more than twenty years in Texas banking leadership, the bank said, including earlier work as a market president and chief lending officer in Austin and other markets around the state.

Huntington is a super-regional operating in Texas, and a division president over its Central Texas commercial markets is a senior seat in the part of the state where community and regional banks compete hardest for commercial talent. A large out-of-state bank placing experienced commercial leadership over Austin and San Antonio adds another well-capitalized bidder for the relationship managers and credit officers those markets run on.

PlainsCapital Bank, the Dallas-based bank owned by Hilltop Holdings, added two relationship managers in Central Texas. Justin Vohs joined as a senior vice president and senior relationship manager based at the Round Rock office; he has more than sixteen years in banking and financial services and was previously a vice president and business banker at First Citizens Bank. Daniel Robertson joined as a vice president and relationship manager at the bank's Stone Oak branch in San Antonio; he has seven years in commercial banking and most recently was a vice president and commercial banker at Truist.

Both seats sit close to a commercial bank's operating-company lending and deposit relationships — the accounts that anchor a book in a given market. Relationship managers who already carry local commercial books in Round Rock and San Antonio are a small, competed-for group, and each move between banks is one the recruiting market follows.

TexasBank, the Fort Worth–based bank with nineteen locations across the DFW Metroplex, Central Texas and West Texas, expanded its executive team. Bill Wade joined as chief operating officer, with a background in banking operations, technology and large-scale transformation work. Leslie Lewis was appointed chief experience officer, a role she had already been shaping at the bank. Matt Duncan, the bank's chief credit officer, added the title of chief risk officer by action of the board.

These are senior operating and risk seats rather than revenue-producing lending roles, but they set the structure the bank's commercial lenders work within — who owns operations, credit, and risk as the bank runs its nineteen locations.