One of the most successful entrepreneurs in Arkansas history, Johnnie Bryant “J. B.” Hunt rose from humble beginnings to found one of America’s largest trucking firms, J.B. Hunt Transport Services.  Today, his company is one of the largest employers in the state, with nearly 15,000 employees and a fleet of 9,688 trucks.  The firm is consistently listed among Forbes magazine’s largest corporations.

The son of sharecroppers, J. B. Hunt was born on February 28, 1927, in rural Cleburne County.  He left school after the seventh grade to work at his uncle’s sawmill and eventually found other work picking cotton and selling lumber.

In 1952, he married Johnelle DeBusk, and the couple went on to have two children.  In 1969, Hunt established a trucking company—with five trucks and seven trailers in the beginning—as a sideline business to his poultry feed company.  A decade later, J. B. Hunt Transport Services was shipping goods across the country, and Hunt’s trucking firm eventually became the largest publicly held trucking company in America.

By the 1990s, Hunt presided over a company that was earning over $1 billion annually and was employing thousands of people.  Today, J. B. Hunt Transport Services is headquartered in Lowell (Benton County), where Hunt made his home after stepping down as senior chairman in 2004.  After retiring from the day-to-day operation of his trucking firm, Hunt spent the remainder of his life engaged in investment, philanthropic activities, and real estate development—particularly in Benton County.  He was one of northwest Arkansas’s most active promoters of business development in the area.

Hunt died suddenly from a fall on December 7, 2006.  His widow, Johnelle, and his son Bryan continue as directors of the firm.