Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. Added to Russell 3000(R) Index

SPRINGFIELD, Mo., June 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Officials of Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (Nasdaq: GSBC), the holding company for Great Southern Bank, today announced that it has been added to the broad-market Russell 3000(R) Index and small-cap Russell 2000(R) Index effective after the stock market close on June 26, 2009.

Great Southern President and CEO Joseph W. Turner commented, "Our inclusion in the Russell indexes reflects well on our Company's performance during this very difficult period in the financial services sector and the economy at large."

The Russell 3000(R) Index measures the performance of the 3,000 largest U.S. companies based on total market capitalization. Membership in the Russell 3000(R) Index, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the small-cap Russell 2000(R) Index or the large-cap Russell 1000(R) Index. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.

Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. An investment-leading $4 trillion in assets currently are benchmarked to theses indexes.

With total assets of $3.4 billion, Great Southern offers banking, investment, insurance and travel services. Headquartered in Springfield, Mo., Great Southern operates 57 retail banking centers and more than 200 ATMs in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. The company also serves lending needs through loan production offices in Overland Park, Kan., Rogers, Ark., and St. Louis. Great Southern Bancorp is a public company and its common stock (ticker: GSBC) is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select stock exchange.

www.greatsouthernbank.com

Forward-Looking Statements

When used in future filings by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in the Company's press releases or other public or shareholder communications, and in oral statements made with the approval of an authorized executive officer, the words or phrases "will likely result" "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," "intends" or similar expressions are intended to identify "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, among other things, changes in economic conditions in the Company's market area, changes in policies by regulatory agencies, fluctuations in interest rates, the risks of lending and investing activities, including changes in the level and direction of loan delinquencies and write-offs and changes in estimates of the adequacy of the allowance for loan losses, the Company's ability to access cost-effective funding, fluctuations in real estate values and both residential and commercial real estate market conditions, demand for loans and deposits in the Company's market area and competition, that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical earnings and those presently anticipated or projected. The Company wishes to advise readers that the factors listed above could affect the Company's financial performance and could cause the Company's actual results for future periods to differ materially from any opinions or statements expressed with respect to future periods in any current statements.

The Company does not undertake-and specifically declines any obligation- to publicly release the result of any revisions which may be made to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

SOURCE Great Southern Bancorp, Inc.