Hello, and welcome to the annual meeting of stockholders of Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Kelly Polonus, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer. Mrs. Polonus, the floor is yours.
Good morning. This is Kelly Polonus with Great Southern. Thank you for joining us today for the 33rd Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. annual meeting of stockholders. We really appreciate your interest and support of our company, and I believe we're ready to get started. It's my pleasure to introduce President and CEO Joe Turner.
Well, thanks, Kelly. I also wanna welcome everyone to our annual meeting today. I'm pleased to be here today representing our more than 1,100 Great Southern associates to report on our company's performance and activities in 2021, which was a very solid year for our company. Before we get started with our presentation, I do wanna recognize our board of directors. Each of our directors brings a unique background and expertise which contributes to our company's continued success. We appreciate all their continued guidance, engagement, and support. I'll introduce each board member, who is also joining us virtually today. First of all, William V. Turner. Mr. Turner's been our chairman since 1974. Kevin Ausburn. Kevin is the chairman and CEO of SMC Packaging Group and has been a director of both Bancorp and our bank since 2017. Julie Brown.
Julie Brown is a partner at Carnahan Evans PC and has been a director of both Bancorp and the bank since 2002. Tom Carlson is President of Mid America Management and has been a director of both our companies since 2001. Larry D. Frazier is retired former CEO of White River Valley Electric Cooperative. Larry was appointed a director of Bancorp and the bank in 1992. Debbie Hart is owner of Housing Plus LLC and Sustainable Housing Solutions and was appointed as director of Bancorp and the bank in 2017. Doug Pitt is the owner of Pitt Technology Group and Pitt Development Group, also the founder of Care to Learn, was appointed as director of Bancorp and the bank in 2015. Earl Steinert.
Earl Steinert is a CPA, co-owner of EAS Investment Enterprises, Inc., and was appointed a director of Bancorp and the bank in 2004. Joining me today are four of my colleagues, our CFO, Rex Copeland, Chief Lending Officer, John Bugh, Chief Retail Banking Officer, Kris Conley, and Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, Kelly Polonus. I'll provide a brief introduction about our objectives during 2021 and then turn the meeting over to my colleagues for their presentations. In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic and its ripple effects continued to present new and ongoing challenges to the economy and society, including the Great Resignation, from which we were not immune.
During these difficult times, we relied heavily on our company's many strengths built through the years, our dedicated and talented team of associates, our culture of resilience, our pride in service excellence, our conservative business practices, and our strong financial position. We continually work on building and nurturing these strengths as a foundation for our long-term success. Managing through a pandemic underscored the significance of doing so. We're pleased to report that we ended 2021 in a strong financial position with a solid footing in the markets we serve. Our 2021 performance provided great momentum as we enter into 2022. Rex Copeland will share these financial results shortly. In 2021, we remained focused on our core strategic objectives, which included attracting and expanding customer relationships, developing our associates, managing risk, sustaining a strong credit discipline, and driving a culture of continuous improvement.
You'll see in our presentations this morning that 2021 was a very busy year, full of activities to further enhance our company and how we serve customers. You'll also see that we had a strong focus on our retail banking and commercial lending delivery channels, our core technological architecture, and customer experience initiatives. I wanna thank our associates for their tireless work and commitment in 2021. No matter what challenge or opportunity is put before them, they are always up for the task. I'm humbled to work with such a remarkable team. I'll now turn the meeting over to Rex Copeland, who will discuss our financial results, again, a reflection of our associates' hard work and dedication. Rex?
Good morning. I'm pleased to highlight some of our financial results today. As Joe said earlier, our overall financial performance in 2021 was very strong, and we've gotten off to a solid start in 2022. This first slide summarizes our growth trends in assets, loans, and deposits. First, I'll start with assets. In 2021, our total assets decreased by about $76 million to $5.45 billion. There was a change in the asset mix as loans decreased $289 million, while cash and cash equivalents increased $154 million, and investment securities increased $86 million.
In the first quarter, the company's total assets also decreased by about $76 million to $5.37 billion. The mix of the company's assets again shifted in the first quarter, with net increases in outstanding loan balances and investment securities. The company used excess funds that were previously held on account at the Federal Reserve Bank to fund a $104 million increase in loans and a $188 million increase in investment securities. Cash and cash equivalents decreased by about $365 million in the first quarter of 2022. Next, I'll talk about loans. Our net outstanding loans decreased by about $289 million from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021, which ended up being about $4.01 billion at the end of last year.
Loan production, as you'll see later, was still very strong in 2021, but we experienced significant headwinds with loan payoffs during that time. In the first quarter of 2022, we experienced about a $104 million increase in net loans compared to the end of 2021. This increase was primarily related to multifamily, commercial real estate, and one to four family residential real estate loans. Loan origination activity was vigorous during the first quarter, and our pipeline of commitments and unfunded construction loans remained steady and strong. Last, deposits. You can see the significant increase in deposits from the end of 2019, and deposit levels remained relatively steady through the end of 2021 at $4.55 billion.
Government stimulus programs and customers parking their cash and checking accounts due to economic uncertainty flooded banks with cash during this time period. At the end of the first quarter in 2022, our deposits totaled $4.49 billion. We saw a decrease in deposits of about $63 million in the first quarter, with expected outflows in some of our time deposit categories driving this overall decrease. This slide provides a summary of the company's performance on several profitability metrics over the last five years in the first quarter of 2022. For our net income, you can see that in 2021, we rebounded nicely from the 2020 level. In 2020, the company increased loan loss provisions to build our reserves for potential credit losses in anticipation of a difficult economic environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fortunately, credit losses did not actually materialize in 2020 or 2021, and the build of reserves for credit losses was released throughout 2021. In the full year of 2021, we earned $74.6 million or $5.46 per diluted common share. A negative provision for credit losses, lower deposit costs, and higher non-interest income drove that increase compared to 2020. Our earnings in the first quarter of 2022 were $17 million or $1.30 per diluted common share. Earnings in the first quarter of 2022 versus the first quarter of 2021 included much lower net deferred fee income accretion related to Paycheck Protection Program loans and lower income from the sale of fixed-rate mortgage loans.
At the bottom portion of this slide are some profitability ratios generally used as measurements in the banking industry. Our ROATCE, or return on average tangible common equity ratio, has in recent years primarily been in the range of 11%-13%. We saw a decline in this ratio in 2020 because of decreased earnings for the reasons I just mentioned. In 2021 and in the first quarter of 2022, the annualized ratio returned to more normal levels based on strong net income. The ROAA, or the return on average assets, is an important profitability ratio indicating the profit a company earns related to its assets. Since bank assets largely consist of outstanding loans, the return is an important metric of bank management. An ROAA above 1% is considered favorable in the banking industry.
Over the last five years, our return on assets has been good, with especially stronger ratios in 2018 and 2019, a period with low credit losses and rising market interest rates. The ROAA declined in 2020 due to decreased earnings. For the first quarter of 2022, our ROAA was 1.27% annualized. We continue to focus on our efficiency ratio, which is non-interest expense divided by the sum of net interest income and non-interest income. The efficiency ratio for the year ended December 31, 2021 was 59.03% compared to 58.07% for 2020. The higher efficiency ratio during 2021 was primarily due to significant IT consulting expense and related contract termination liability incurred late in December of 2021.
The efficiency ratio during the first quarter of 2022 remained above 59% at 59.62%, primarily due to an increase in non-interest expense, mainly in the compensation expense category. Our core net interest margin, which excludes the impact of the additional yield accretion from FDIC-acquired loans that was more prominent prior to 2020, was relatively stable from 2017 to 2019. In that timeframe, market interest rates were generally rising and were at relatively higher levels in 2018 and 2019 versus the other years included in this slide. We experienced some core margin compression in 2020 as market interest rates declined dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The core net interest margin decreased about 4 basis points during 2021 due to declining market interest rates, a change in asset mix, and a redemption of subordinated notes in 2021. The core margin during the first quarter of 2022 was 3.43%, which was a bit higher than 2020 and 2021, reflective of lower funding costs and a more favorable asset mix. It appears that we will be in a rising rate environment, at least for the remainder of 2022. The Federal Open Market Committee raised rates by 25 basis points in March and 50 basis points this month, and has signaled it would likely raise interest rates multiple times during the remainder of 2022 in response to current economic conditions, including high inflation.
As we've stated before, generally, a rising interest rate environment, particularly short-term rates, should positively impact our net interest income. We anticipate this to be the case if the FOMC proceeds in raising rates as they've signaled thus far. This slide looks at our common stockholders' equity, which includes our small amount of intangible assets and our book value per outstanding share over the last five years and first quarter of 2022. Strong capital is a priority for our company. Winners in banking are those that have strong capital and are thus able to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise. We recognize that our common equity level of capital is generally high compared to the industry averages. Today's environment underscores the reason why we follow conservative capital management strategies and how important we think it is.
Total stockholders' equity continues to be very strong, totaling $583 million or 10.8% of total assets at March 31, 2022. We experienced a decrease in capital of about $34 million from the end of 2021 to the end of the first quarter of this year. This decrease was primarily a result of the change in unrealized gains and losses on available for sale securities and purchases of the company's common stock. Regarding regulatory capital, the position of the company continues to be strong and significantly exceeds the well-capitalized thresholds established by regulatory guidelines.
The company has been in various buyback programs since May 1990, and the company has historically utilized stock buyback programs from time to time as long as management believed that repurchasing the stock would contribute to the overall growth of shareholder value. Since the latter half of 2020, we have actively repurchased shares of our stock. During 2020, the company repurchased about 530,000 shares of its common stock at an average price of $41.71 per share. In 2021, 715,000 shares were purchased at an average price of $54.69 per share. In January of 2022, the company's board of directors authorized the purchase of an additional one million shares of the company's common stock.
Based on market conditions, we continued to repurchase stock through the first quarter of 2022, repurchasing 419,000 shares at an average price of $60.40 per share. We currently have about 660,000 shares available to repurchase in our current stock repurchase authorization. This next slide provides a historic view of our tangible common equity, or TCE, and TCE ratio since 2017. TCE is a measure of a company's total capital less intangible assets and preferred stock, which is used to evaluate a financial institution's ability to handle potential losses. Some believe that the TCE ratio is one of the best measures of an institution's actual financial strength. The TCE ratio, represented by the orange line, measures tangible common equity as a percentage of tangible assets.
At March 31, 2022, we saw a decrease in both of these metrics as a result of what we discussed earlier with the market value decline in the available for sale securities portfolio and the impact of repurchases of the company's common stock. At March 31, 2022, the company's tangible common equity to tangible assets ratio was 10.7%, compared to 11.2% at December 31, 2021. This current ratio is still considered to be a high level by industry standards and an example of our strong financial position. We're all shareholders of Great Southern and understand the importance of the dividend as a component for the total return performance on our common stock. Since 1989, through good and bad business cycles, Great Southern has paid consecutive quarterly cash dividends to our common shareholders.
Quarterly dividend declarations are approved by our board of directors and are determined by, among other things, quarterly earnings levels, current strategic priorities, and capital needs of the company. In 2021, we declared a total regular cash dividend of $1.40 per common share. During the first quarter of 2022, we declared a regular cash dividend of $0.36 per common share. That concludes my remarks this morning. It's now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Chief Lending Officer John Bugh.
Thank you, Rex. Our net loan portfolio remains diversified across loan type and throughout our footprint. In 2021, we saw growth in construction and single-family real estate loans, a continuation from recent years related to more individuals seeking out homeownership. Despite record loan production in multiple lines of business, which I will highlight shortly, our loan growth was hindered by significant loan repayments throughout the year, including approximately $169 million of debt forgiveness related to the Paycheck Protection Program. The bank's loan commitments and unfunded pipeline remained strong at the end of 2021, up more than $400 million from December 31, 2020. We saw positive loan growth in the first quarter of 2022, with the bank's loan portfolio up nearly $100 million, with nearly 2/3rds of that growth originating from our St. Louis market.
We are proud of our diverse loan portfolio and our talented lending teams and are hard at work to make 2022 another successful year. We are certainly off to a good start. Asset quality remains strong. As you can see on this slide, non-performing assets have been on a decline for several years, with the exception of an increase in 2021 as a result of the pandemic. Net charge-off loans remained at zero for the second year in a row. The allowance for credit losses as a percentage of total loans is a significant metric that reflects potential credit losses inherent in the loan portfolio. You can see that in 2020, this metric spiked rather significantly as the allowance was increased due to the COVID pandemic.
In January 2021, the company adopted the new CECL accounting standard, which uses a lifetime expected credit loss measurement objective for loans. Upon adoption of the CECL methodology, we increased the balance of the allowance related to outstanding loans by $11.6 million and created a liability for potential losses related to the unfunded portion of our loans and commitments of $8.7 million. This further increased the allowance for credit losses as a percentage of total loans. At March 31, 2022, the allowance for credit loss to loans remained stable from the end of 2021, 1.49% at the end of 2021, and 1.46% at the end of the first quarter of 2022.
Management considers the allowance for credit losses adequate to cover losses inherent in the bank's loan portfolio at March 31, 2022, based on recent reviews of the bank's loan portfolio and current and forecasted economic conditions. The allowance for credit losses as a percentage of non-performing loans reflect reserve coverage of problem credits in the loan portfolio. This ratio has increased over the past several years as a result of both increased credit loss reserve balances and lower levels of non-performing loans. Prior to 2021, we did not include FDIC-assisted acquired loans in our non-performing loans. With the adoption of CECL, we began including these acquired loans in total non-performing loans. As we look ahead, we will continue prioritizing a strong credit discipline. Let's talk about loan production.
For the sixth year in a row, the commercial lending team produced more than $1 billion in new loans and achieved a new record for production of $1.6 billion. We've long shared that commercial lending is an area of expertise for our bank, and our continued success year after year reflects this. This success is attributable to the talented lenders we hire. Our commercial lending market managers, who have an average of 25 years of lending experience, build teams of knowledgeable lenders who establish strong credit relationships in our markets. The residential lending team reached a new record for production in 2021, originating approximately 2,000 home purchase and refinance loans that totaled more than $565 million, $23 million greater than 2020's record.
This growth in residential lending production was fueled by historically low interest rates and the ongoing competitive purchase market related to more individuals seeking to purchase a home. Continuing with home-related loan growth, our home equity lines of credit, which is a consumer loan product, experienced significant growth of 43% from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021. Because of the competitive purchase market, many homeowners are opting to use this equity in their current home to make improvements rather than selling and attempting to purchase a new home. To strategically position the bank in attractive commercial lending markets, which are typically large metropolitan areas, we open commercial loan production offices. These offices are very cost-effective to establish and have long been a very successful model for the bank.
Of the $1.6 billion in production during 2021, nearly 40% was generated by our six commercial loan production offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Omaha, and Tulsa. Based on this continued success, we recently opened a new commercial loan production office in Phoenix, and we anticipate another office will open shortly. As we look to establish a new office, we will seek out and hire local commercial lending experts with extensive knowledge of the market. With that, I will turn it over to Chief Retail Banking Officer, Kris Conley.
Thanks, John. Our deposit mix is a source of strength for our company. Checking and savings deposits account for more than 80% of our deposit portfolio, and time deposits make up nearly 18%. Checking and savings deposits grew in nearly all of our markets. In comparing totals from April 2021 to April 2022, our St. Louis market had the largest checking and savings deposit growth by approximately 22%. As we anticipated, time deposits experienced a significant decrease across all of our markets throughout 2021 and into the first part of 2022. However, the impact of this decrease on our deposit portfolio was offset by strong growth in checking and savings deposits. We attribute much of the time deposit decrease to the ongoing deposit rate environment and uncertainty related to ongoing world events.
We recognize that customers want to achieve the highest rate possible for their funds. We will continue logically setting deposit rates and evaluating them on a regular basis. When approached by an established customer, about matching a competitor's deposit rate to retain their business, we will evaluate those requests on a case-by-case basis to ensure they make sound business sense. As we look forward, we will remain focused on retaining and growing our customer base and deposits. Our banking centers continue to be a source of strength for our company as well. While our convenient digital banking products and services provide customers with self-sufficient banking options to align with their busy lives, our customers remain interested in having face-to-face conversations with their banker when needed.
Whether they're opening a new deposit account, discussing lending options, or seeking out financial advice, our customers view our banking center associates as their financial partners. In providing excellent service and establishing strong relationships with customers, we strengthen loyalty and build trust. We continue to analyze the performance of our banking centers and our markets. This puts us in a position to understand customer behavior, so we can strategically invest resources in existing offices and open new locations based on demand. From time to time, we also make the difficult decision to consolidate a location. After an extensive review of our customers' use of our banking centers on weekends, we recently implemented changes to our hours of operation in the Springfield market. We reduced weekend hours at some locations and removed weekend hours altogether from banking centers located nearby a higher traffic office.
These changes have yielded positive benefits for our associates, improving their work-life balance by reducing the number of days and hours on weekends that they're scheduled to work and for the bank from a cost savings perspective. Our Springfield customers still have access to nine locations that remain open on Saturdays. Furthermore, our bank, like other companies, has experienced the effects of the ongoing labor shortage. This change has helped with weekend staffing, ensuring that we are providing our customers with the full support they expect and deserve when they visit one of our locations. Based on this success, we are reevaluating changes to the hours of the operation in all of our markets, closely balancing customer needs and efficient operations. In November of last year, we consolidated our Westfall Plaza location with our location in Ferguson, Missouri.
This office was acquired as part of our 2016 purchase of Fifth Third Bank deposits and offices in the St. Louis market. As with many of our consolidations, this decision was based on customer traffic and the proximity of this location to Ferguson, less than three miles away. Associates from the consolidated office were transferred to open positions at other nearby banking centers. We completed construction of our new banking center in Joplin, Missouri. This new office was the first in our banking center refresh program. The new Joplin bank, which replaced the lease location, opened in September. It offers better ease of access for our customers and features a simplistic modern design with plenty of space for our bankers to help our customers.
As we shared last year, next in line for a refresh was our Kimberling City Banking Center located in the Tri-Lakes area of Southwest Missouri. Demolition of the former building occurred in April of this year, and construction of the new office is underway. Like our new Joplin location, the Kimberling City office will feature a simplistic and modern design. We anticipate this office will open later this year. The wealth of feedback data we are obtaining from our customers each day through short touch point surveys helps us identify trends and opportunities for improvement. We've received nearly 40,000 responses in the last three years through our various surveys, more than 90% of which reflect positive experiences. Using open text response fields, our customers have the opportunity to share details about their experience in their own words.
A company's Net Promoter Score, which is a direct reflection of customer loyalty, ranges from a score of -100 to 100. A score closer to 100 reflects very strong customer loyalty. The average Net Promoter Score for the financial industry is 34. Our bank's Net Promoter Score is more than double the industry average. From a demographic trends perspective, we are better understanding how customers from different generations bank with us, what they like, and what improvements they'd like to see. As an example, in analyzing the feedback received from Generation Z customers, those born between 1997 and 2012, we've learned that they're accessing our banking centers using the lobby more frequently than the drive-thru, the only generation to do so.
While this access point trend is surprising for such a digitally focused and connected generation, we recognize it as an opportunity for our team to harness those frequent face-to-face interactions to build strong relationships with the generation many are seeking to attract. While we continue capturing and analyzing data from various customer touch points to grow our understanding of customer preferences, drive improvements to the overall banking experience, and grow customer loyalty and a share wallet. With that, I'll turn it over to our Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, Kelly Polonus.
Thank you, Kris. In 2021, we continued on with initiatives to be an even better bank for our customers, a better place for our associates to work, and to help make our communities better and more enriching places to live. Our digital banking services make it easy for our customers to bank when and where they prefer. We continue to prioritize providing the banking services our customers want and need to make their banking experiences they desire. As we shared in last year's annual meeting, customer adoption and usage of our digital banking services grew during the pandemic, and this trend continued in 2021. While our customers remain interested in visiting our banking centers when they need assistance, they have embraced our convenient digital services as another option to stay connected with their finances.
In 2021, we added nearly 3,000 new users to our Online Banking system and grew active mobile banking users by more than 6,100. Total annual logins for both our Online Banking website and mobile banking app increased by 17% and 14% respectively. In total, our customers logged in more than 53 million times to check their balance, view transactions, and access our digital banking services such as Mobile Check Deposit, bill pay, and Debit On/ Off. Mobile Check Deposit remains a very popular feature with our customers that is located within our mobile banking application. We added approximately 3,700 new users last year. In total, our customers processed more than 236,000 Mobile Check Deposit transactions.
We look forward to offering our customers even more convenient digital banking options as we migrate to a new core operating and digital banking platform in the next 15 months. We're very excited about this migration to a new core operating system, which will be foundational for our long-term strategic plans. As I just mentioned, it will help us enhance and expand our digital capabilities, and with the new platform's marketing data capabilities, it will also support our efforts in attracting and retaining lifelong customers. As a company, we know that we can only be as strong as the communities we serve. Through our Community Matters program, we provide services and capital to help our local markets grow. We encourage our associates to be involved in their communities, and we financially support nonprofit organizations and their much-needed services.
Each year, we combine our service efforts with more than $1.8 million in funding to help bolster nonprofit, civic, and recreational efforts. To ensure we're meeting the unique needs in our local markets, our regional Community Matters teams are instrumental in targeting support so that we can get the best use of our philanthropic and public relations dollars in each community that we serve. We want the impact of our Community Matters program to go beyond making financial donations, so we strongly encourage our associates and provide them with paid time off to do so, to get involved and volunteer with organizations that align with their passions and help meet the needs of their communities. Along with thousands and thousands of volunteer hours, in 2021, our associates generously gave more than $70,000 to support local United Ways and food insecurity agencies.
Great Southern Bank's annual Bill and Ann Turner Distinguished Community Service Award was created to emphasize the importance placed on volunteerism by honoring one outstanding associate who demonstrates excellence in volunteer service to their community. The 2022 community service award recipient is Mary Dunavant, our regional banking center manager in our St. Louis market. Mary volunteers at a wide variety of organizations and events, whether serving meals to grieving families through Annie's Hope or partnering with the Sons of the American Legion to raise funds for several veteran-focused groups. She seeks to better the lives of others simply because it's the right thing to do. Her dedication to volunteering is an inspiration to her associates. She regularly gathers members of her team to participate in group volunteer events, viewing them as opportunities to better their community and also strengthen their bond as teammates.
Mary's work embodies the spirit of this award. As bankers, we know that understanding and managing money is the key to financial stability, and we are in a very unique position to help our existing and future customers. Through our customer research efforts and data collected with organizations like J.D. Power, we've learned that our customers, especially younger adults, want us to provide them with readily available and meaningful financial education. A recent survey published in the ABA Banking Journal shows that nearly two-thirds of participating Americans felt that financial education should be a priority for everyone, especially after the hardships experienced with the pandemic and the current inflationary environment. To address this need, we offer the Great Southern Financial Education Center.
Customers, associates, and community members can access the center directly through our website to take advantage of customized interactive modules designed to connect them with personalized digital financial education at no cost. We firmly believe that open access to robust financial education can be a catalyst for positive change, and we're very encouraged by the usage of this free service during the last year. In April, our company and Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, announced an agreement to name MSU's main basketball arena the Great Southern Bank Arena. Great Southern has had a long-standing relationship with Missouri State that goes back many, many decades. Missouri State is a pillar in Southwest Missouri and beyond, providing our communities significant educational, cultural, recreational, and economic opportunities.
The prospect to add the Great Southern name to the arena was met with great enthusiasm and interest by our team. With our history and shared values with the university, we believe that this level of support is a natural fit. We are honored to have our name associated with this venue, which is the center of so many activities and life events in our community. Our associates are passionate about taking care of our customers, and when we get recognized for it is both exhilarating and humbling. Just a few weeks ago, Forbes announced its 2022 World's Best Banks list, and Great Southern was once again ranked in the top 10 among banks in the United States. This is the third year in a row to be in the top 10 in this distinguished ranking.
We are honored to be recognized with the award because it is a result of the customer feedback and ratings on such things as general satisfaction, trust, terms and conditions, digital services, and financial advice. Nearly 500 banks worldwide were awarded by consumers as being among the World's Best Banks, with 75 of those in the United States. We thank our customers for this honor and commend our associates for their great work. Thank you for your attention. I will turn the meeting back over to Joe Turner for closing remarks.
Okay. Thanks, Kelly. As we look into 2022 and into the future, we will continue to capitalize on our strengths and be ready for the challenges of continued economic and political uncertainty. Our strategic priorities continue to be maintaining a sharp focus on developing and expanding customer relationships, closely managing interest rate risk, sustaining a strong credit discipline, and driving continuous improvement throughout our company. We very much understand that banking is evolving rapidly, especially with technological advances. We must remain focused on being responsive to the ever-changing demands and expectations of our customers. As a bank and public company, we are accustomed to changing expectations and demands from interest groups such as regulators, other governing bodies, investors, and other professional institutions, and we understand the need for this oversight.
Our board and management team are increasing our emphasis on environmental, social, and governance considerations as related policies and standards emerge in the industry. As always, we are committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace that best represents the communities we serve. We fully appreciate the benefits of a diverse staff and are working to address challenges in recruiting and retention by broadening recruitment efforts, establishing relationships with student groups and professional organizations, and providing training on unconscious bias. In closing, we believe that we are well positioned for a successful 2022. As we move forward, we pledge to keep in mind the long-term interests of all the constituents we serve. Our long-standing mission is to build winning relationships with our customers, associates, communities, and shareholders. We believe a winning relationship means that both parties receive benefit or value from the relationship.
For our associates, we want to make our company a great place to work and grow professionally, and they in turn provide extraordinary service to the, for those they serve. For our customers, we want to develop lasting relationships by providing the right products and services at a fair price and delivered how and when they prefer. For our many communities, we strive to support causes and address needs to help them be even better places to live and work. Our company can only be as strong as the communities we serve. For our stockholders, we desire to provide a superior long-term return on their investment in our company. We support this objective by fostering winning relationships with our associates, customers, and communities. We go to work every day recognizing the big responsibility that we have to perform for our stockholders.
Thank you for your attention today, and most importantly, for your support of Great Southern. We would now be happy to entertain any questions received through our meeting portal. Of course, we welcome your feedback at any time, so please feel free to reach out to us. Are there questions?
We don't have any questions.
Okay. Well, seeing that there are no questions, we'll move on to the business portion of the meeting.
Turning to the business portion of this meeting, we have determined that a quorum is present, so voting on the proposals before this meeting may occur. The first item of business is to vote on the proposals set forth in the notice of this meeting and the proxy statement, which were made available to stockholders commencing on or about March 31st, 2022. No other proposals may properly come before this meeting. Only stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 2nd, 2022 are entitled to notice of and to vote at this meeting. If you are a stockholder entitled to vote and have not yet voted, or if you want to change your vote previously cast by proxy, please do so via the website used to access this meeting.
Please remember that if you have already voted by proxy, it is not necessary to vote again. After voting has been completed on all matters, we will provide a preliminary report of the results. The polls for voting will remain open for a short time as I formally present the proposals. We will monitor the portal for questions regarding the proposals as they are presented. The first proposal is the election of three directors. The board of directors is divided into three classes, the terms of which are staggered to expire in different years. Ms. Julie Turner Brown, Mr. Earl A. Steinert ., and Mr. William V. Turner are in the class of directors whose term expires this year. Ms. Brown, Mr. Steinert, and Mr. Turner are willing to serve the three-year term for which they have been nominated.
Since no other nominations may be made at this meeting, I declare the nominations closed. The second proposal for your consideration is a non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation as described in the company's proxy statement for the annual meeting through the adoption of a resolution in the form stated on page 29 of the proxy statement. The third proposal for your consideration is the approval of the Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. 2022 Omnibus Incentive Plan as described beginning on page 30 of the company's proxy statement for the annual meeting. A complete copy of the 2022 Omnibus Incentive Plan is attached to the proxy statement as Appendix A. The final proposal for your consideration is to ratify the Audit Committee's appointment of BKD LLP to serve as Great Southern's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2022.
The polls are about to close, so if you're a stockholder of record and wish to vote during this meeting but have not yet done so, please do so now. As previously noted, if you've already voted by proxy, it is not necessary to vote again. We will pause for just a moment. Do we have any questions? Hearing no questions. The proposals have been presented to you in the notice and proxy statement and at this meeting. Proxies have been made available in turn, and any stockholders of record wishing to vote during this meeting have had the opportunity to do so. The polls are now closed. The preliminary results are as follows: Ms. Julie Turner Brown, Mr. Earl A. Steinert ., and Mr. William V. Turner have been elected as directors, each for a three-year term to expire in 2025.
The advisory vote on executive compensation has been approved. The Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. 2022 Omnibus Incentive Plan has been approved. The appointment of BKD LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31st, 2022, has been ratified. The final results will be contained in a Form 8-K to be filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are now ready to adjourn our meeting. I declare the 2022 annual meeting of stockholders is now adjourned. We thank you for attending today and for your continued interest in Great Southern.
This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.