Lynn Hoghaug got offers to buy the Ramsey National Bank & Trust Co. - mostly from other banks. He wanted to make sure the family bank, chartered more than 100 years ago, did not become a "mart."

"Our family's long-term goal was to keep the bank under local control," Hoghaug said Friday.

He believes that goal is being reached.

Employees, though a stock option plan, took over controlling interest of the Devils Lake bank on Thursday, from the Hoghaug family, said Scott Thompson, the president and new chief executive.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"As of today, I am no longer employed," Hoghaug, the bank's former chief executive, said Friday. "Our family has sold enough stock so employees have control."

The state's top banking regulator said Ramsey National is not the first to use such an employee stock option plan.

"It's a nice way to make sure it stays in that community," said Tim Karsky, commissioner of North Dakota's Department of Financial Institutions. "It's not uncommon."

Hoghaug has been named chairman emeritus of the board of directors and will continue to have an office at the bank's main office in Devils Lake.

"I will still be a shareholder, but not a very big one," he said.

The bank, chartered in 1892, has about 75 employees at three branches in Devils Lake, and in Maddock, Esmond, Fargo, Cando, Rugby and Cavalier, Hoghaug said.

The bank has assets of about $178 million and deposits of about $143 million, Thompson and Hoghaug said. It is one of seven banks in Devils Lake, a city of about 7,200 people.

Hoghaug said his father, Fred, and other partners bought the bank in 1955. Fred Hoghaug, who died in 1993, began working at the bank in 1928 as a janitor and "mail boy" while still in high school, Lynn Hoghaug said.

The employee buyout, which was approved by 99 percent of the bank's more than 100 shareholders, "will be a benefit to the employees of the bank, our family and the communities we serve," Hoghaug said.