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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah banker Roy W. Simmons has died at 90.
Simmons died of natural causes Tuesday evening at his home in Kaysville.
Simmons and his business partners organized Keystone Insurance and Investment Co. in 1955. In 1960, they acquired the 57.5 percent controlling interest in Zions First National Bank held by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Keystone later changed its name to Zions Bancorp.
Simmons served as chief executive officer of Zions Bancorp and Zions First National Bank from 1964 until 1990 and retired as chairman of the board in 2002. Since then he served as an emeritus director. The bank now has 450 offices and 500 automated teller machines in 10 Western states.
Simmons was born Jan. 24, 1916, in Portland, Ore. His mother died when he was 8, and his father died shortly thereafter. He was raised in Salt Lake City by a family friend, Blanche Davis Reese.
He attended South High School and attended the University of Utah from 1934 to 1937.
He worked a couple years as an insurance salesman, and began his banking career alongside his father-in-law, Laurence Ellison, in 1940 at First National Bank at Layton.
In 1949, Simmons was named state banking commissioner, and in 1952, he helped found the Bank of Utah in Ogden.
"Roy Simmons was one of the nation's most respected and admired bankers and was prominent in numerous community affairs," Doyle L. Arnold, Zions vice chairman and chief financial officer, said in a prepared statement. "He will be deeply missed by all who knew him."
Simmons is survived by his wife, Elizabeth "Tibby" Ellison Simmons, and their six children. Services are scheduled for Saturday.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
