Johnelle Hunt holds a $14.7 million default judgment against One Bank’s parent company.
Johnelle Hunt, the co-founder of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell, was the featured speaker at the Arkansas Trucking Association’s annual conference Thursday at the Hammons Centers in Rogers.
The ATA celebrated the 85th anniversary of its founding in 1932. Hunt and her late husband, J.B. “Johnnie” Hunt, founded the trucking company in 1969 with five trucks and seven trailers.
Her speech was full of anecdotes of the Hunts’ lives together and Johnelle Hunt’s role as the organizer, bill collector and ombudsman of the company, which has grown into one of the nation’s largest transportation companies. Hunt said she still gets just as excited to see a J.B. Hunt truck as she did when the company was just starting out.
“I’ll never get over that feeling,” Hunt said.
Mostly, Hunt told story of her husband, who died Dec. 7, 2006 from injuries sustained in a fall five days earlier. She called him the “love of my life.”
She recounted how her husband decided in late 1989 to start an intermodal division at J. B. Hunt, a decision that has helped the company grow so financially successful.
“I think it’s the biggest thing that has ever happened to any industry in the world,” Hunt said. “The general public doesn’t have any idea what intermodal has done for this country.”
After her husband retired from the company and later died, Johnelle Hunt took over his dream of developing northwest Arkansas real estate through Hunt Ventures. In a poetic twist, much of the development around the Hammons Center was part of J.B. Hunt’s vision.
“I’m still just carrying out his dream,” said Hunt, who is still active with Hunt Ventures. “That’s all I can do. These are his dreams.”
ATA President Shannon Newton said it was a coup for the conference to get Hunt as a speaker. During the two days, the ATA had guest speakers that included American Trucking Associations CEO Chris Spear and state Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville.
Newton said she asked Hunt to appear through intermediary Craig Harper, the COO of J.B. Hunt and a former chairman of the board of ATA.
“It was a big occasion,” Newton said. “I didn’t know she would say yes. She loves the industry.”
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