Southside Bancshares, Inc. Declares Cash Dividend

    TYLER, Texas, Aug. 14 /EMWNews/ -- The Board of Directors

of Southside Bancshares, Inc., (Nasdaq: SBSI), parent company of Southside

Bank and Fort Worth National Bank declared a special cash dividend of $0.03

per common share in addition to declaring a regular quarterly cash dividend

of $0.13 per share. "This special cash dividend was approved by the Board

of Directors as a tangible method for shareholders to share in Southside's

positive results reported during the first six months of 2008," stated B.

G. Hartley, Chairman of the Board and CEO. The combined $0.16 per share

cash dividend is payable to common stock shareholders of record August 28,

2008. The cash dividend is scheduled for payment on September 11, 2008.



    Southside Bancshares, Inc. is a bank holding company with approximately

$2.3 billion in assets that owns 100% of Southside Bank and Fort Worth

National Bank. Southside Bank and Fort Worth National Bank currently have

44 banking centers in Texas and operate a network of 47 ATMs.



    To learn more about Southside Bancshares, Inc., please visit our

investor relations website at http://www.southside.com/investor. Our

investor relations site provides a detailed overview of our activities,

financial information and historical stock price data. To receive e-mail

notification of company news, events and stock activity, please register on

the E-mail Notification portion of the website. Questions or comments may

be directed to Susan Hill at (903) 531-7220, or [email protected].



    Forward-Looking Statements



    Certain statements of other than historical fact that are contained in

this document and in written material, press releases and oral statements

issued by or on behalf of the Company, a bank holding company, may be

considered to be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of and

subject to the protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future

performance, nor should they be relied upon as representing management's

views as of any subsequent date. These statements may include words such as

"expect," "estimate," "project," "anticipate," "appear," "believe,"

"could," "should," "may," "intend," "probability," "risk," "target,"

"objective," "plans," "potential," and similar expressions. Forward-looking

statements are statements with respect to the Company's beliefs, plans,

expectations, objectives, goals, anticipations, assumptions, estimates,

intentions and future performance and are subject to significant known and

unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause the Company's actual

results to differ materially from the results discussed in the

forward-looking statements. For example, discussions of the effect of the

Company's expansion, including expectations of the costs and profitability

of such expansion, trends in asset quality and earnings from growth, and

certain market risk disclosures are based upon information presently

available to management and are dependent on choices about key model

characteristics and assumptions and are subject to various limitations. By

their nature, certain of the market risk disclosures are only estimates and

could be materially different from what actually occurs in the future. As a

result, actual income gains and losses could materially differ from those

that have been estimated.



    Additional information concerning the Company and its business,

including additional factors that could materially affect the Company's

financial results, is included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K

for the year ended December 31, 2007 under "Forward-Looking Information"

and Item 1A. "Risk Factors," and in the Company's other filings with the

Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company disclaims any obligation to

update any factors or to announce publicly the result of revisions to any

of the forward-looking statements included herein to reflect future events

or developments.