>One has to wonder how this bank ever managed to be successful before.

The article touches on exactly this:

>No one in Elkhart has managed to make sense of the mystery at the center of the betrayal: Why did a successful, financially sophisticated banker, a man the whole town trusted for decades, gamble his life away for a shot at crypto riches?

Though this guy had been previously fired from the same position at the bank in 2011 for financial irregularities under his watch, so they kind of only have themselves to blame:

>But in 2011, the leaders of the Kansas Bank Corporation grew concerned about Hanes, according to Tina Call, who served on the company’s board at the time. They had discovered problems in his loan portfolio — borrowers who lacked sufficient collateral, financial paperwork that didn’t seem to add up.

>Hanes was eventually fired for reasons that remain in dispute years later.