EveryTruckJob.com

J.B. Hunt Trucking Co. Founder Dies
Thursday December 7, 2:02 pm ET
By Jon Gambrell, Associated Press Writer
Johnnie Bryant Hunt Sr., Founder of J.B. Hunt Trucking Company, Dies at 79 After a Fall


LOWELL, Ark. (AP) -- Johnnie Bryan Hunt Sr., founder of one of the nation's largest trucking companies, died Thursday, the company announced. He was 79.
Hunt had been in critical condition at a Springdale, Ark., hospital after hitting his head on ice in a fall Saturday. A sharecropper's son, he began J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. in 1969 with five tractors and seven trailers.

By 2004, when Hunt stepped down as the company's senior chairman, the company was a billion-dollar business with more than 16,000 employees and a fleet of some 11,000 trucks.

After he retired, Hunt pursued interests as a private investor in real estate, construction, and development. He and his wife, Johnelle, remained the largest shareholders of J.B. Hunt stock.

Aside from his business success, Hunt also was known for his kindness to others. He carried a wad of $100 bills in a gold money clip and regularly handed them out to people he thought needed the money.

"I was hungry once. And once you're hungry, you're different," he told Forbes magazine in 1992.

Hunt was born in Heber Springs, Ark., on Feb. 28, 1927. He quit school at 12 to help support his family, earning $1.50 a day at his uncle's sawmill. He also sold the mill's wood shavings to poultry farmers for ground cover in their chicken coops.

Hunt joined the Army at 18 and was recruited for officers training school. He declined, and later called that the biggest mistake of his life.

"It was my only real chance to get an education," he said.

Hunt returned to the sawmill in 1948 and sold surplus boards in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois from the back of a truck. He also bought chickens and hauled them to a packing plant in Missouri.

Hunt said the most desperate time of his life came in 1949, when the sawmill went broke, leaving him with $3,600 in debt. He got a job driving a truck between Texarkana and Fort Smith, and by 1952, had paid off the debt. He and Johnelle DuBusk were married that year and settled in Texarkana.

Hunt often put in a seven-day week, earning about $40 a week. To make extra money, the Hunts sold flagstone, cement and sod from their home.

J.B. added comfort in knowing that the American dream is alive and still obtainable. Thanks for setting a great example of what we should all strive for. Rest in peace.