When you walk into the wonderful old-style bank with its wood-paneled counter, there's a sign congratulating teller Leanne Harris on her 35^th year as a staff member.

Leanne started with the bank in 1985, immediately after leaving Coota High in Year 11.

Born in Sydney, she first came to Coota in 2^nd class primary, then left when her father, Peter Spratt, who was in the police force, was posted to Morrisset.

"When he retired the whole family decided Cootamundra was the place we wanted to live, and we all came back," Leanne said.

"I went to high school here, then got this job, then worked in Temora Westpac for about a year, and came back here when I was 18."

Her father and mother Patricia moved to Sydney, but she stayed in Coota to be with boyfriend Brad, whom she married.

The couple have three teenage boys, Theo, 16, Charlie, 15, and Max 13, all currently at Coota High.

Leanne has never worked without computers, but she's seen a lot of changes over her three and a half decades with the bank.

"Downsizing the staff, for one thing - when I first started there would have been at least ten people working here.

"People in every office, busy, busy busy, now a lot's been taken away.

"I wasn't part of the old-style manual ledgering, but I remember when we first got our ATM.

"We didn't get it for a while, but it was a whole new world when it arrived, with our customers adapting to using it.

"We've still got customers who've got passbooks, believe it or not. They don't like the ATM, and haven't got credit cards, they like to come in and use their passbook.

"Not many, half a dozen or so, I think a lot of people like to come in for a chat, especially if they're on their own."

These days Leanne works only three days a week, using her two days off doing as many classes at the Come Alive gym as she can.

She also keeps fit power walking on the streets around her neighbourhood, in the northern outskirts of the town, but doesn't like the sticks and stones and snakes of bushwalking.