June 21, 2006

Reporters May Contact:

Kelly Polonus, Great Southern Bank, (417) 895-5242
kpolonus@greatsouthernbank.com

Great Southern Bancorp, Inc.
increases quarterly dividend to $.15 per share

Springfield, Mo. - The Board of Directors of Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC), the holding company for Great Southern Bank, declared a $.15 per share dividend for the second quarter of the calendar year ending December 31, 2006. The quarterly dividend is a 7% increase from the prior quarter.

The dividend will be payable on July 14, 2006, to shareholders of record on June 30, 2006.

With total assets of $2.2 billion, Great Southern offers banking, investment, insurance and travel services. Headquartered in Springfield, Mo., Great Southern operates 35 retail banking centers and 170 ATMs throughout southwest and central Missouri. The company also serves lending needs through loan production offices in Overland Park, Kan., Rogers, Ark., Columbia, Mo., and St. Louis. Great Southern Bancorp is a public company and its common stock (ticker: GSBC) is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

www.greatsouthernbank.com

When used in this press release 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 credit risks of lending 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, 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.