Starting out
Ross Neely, Sr. was a truck driver. His son, Ross, Jr. was born in Gadsden, Alabama in 1927, and moved to Birmingham with his family four years later. At the age of 16, Ross Neely, Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Navy; he spent 30 months in the Pacific Theater during World War II. After the war, Ross returned to Birmingham and finished high school, where he met and married his late wife.
Ross drove a truck for his father and delivered newspapers for several years. He bought a 1947...