After losing his long-time job at a lumber mill, Alabama Driver of the Year James White found a fresh start behind the wheel of a truck – and he’s been unstoppable ever since.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama Truck Driver of the Year, James White, doesn’t ask for much in life. His goals are straightforward: to secure a stable, well-paying job that supports his family, to give back to his community, and to be recognized as one of the best drivers on the road. 

For many, he’s already all that – and so much more.

He also isn’t one for the limelight. He doesn’t crave vacations to sunny destinations or extravagant dinners in his name. Big crowds aren’t his thing, either. He’s a truck driver, not a politician – and by all accounts, one of the finest on the road.

Mr. White, 71,  was recently named the Alabama Driver of the Year, sponsored by Southland Transportation Group, by the Alabama Trucking Association’s Safety & Maintenance Management Council (SMMC) for his 25-year “second” career in trucking.

A contractor for the Birmingham-based P&S Transportation for 13 years, Mr. White has driven nearly 5 million miles without a single accident in three decades on the road, earning his reputation as a trusted leader for one of the nation’s largest, and most successful fleets.

“I’m so blessed to win this award,” White said, clutching his award and standing at the podium during the SMMC Fleet Safety Awards Banquet in March. “I work hard to be the best I can be in everything I do. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘If you’re going to be a street sweeper, make sure your street is the cleanest in the neighborhood.’ I love what I do, and I take pride in what I do. That’s why I strive to be the best truck driver out there.”

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’  
–Martin Luther King Jr.

Fields to Freight

James grew up one of nine children (five brothers and four sisters) to Calhoun and Ola May White on a sharecropper’s farm near Shreveport, La. His parents were loving, but strict, and required the kids to help out on the farm from a young age.

“We raised corn, peas, cotton, watermelon, peanuts, anything we could grow,” he says. “Life was hard, and we were poor, but our life was just what it was – we didn’t know better. Growing up like that made me who I am. I am proud of how I was raised.”

After graduating from high school, he worked at a poultry farm, where he spent several years handling manual labor and maintenance tasks. He later took a job at a Louisiana-Pacific lumber mill in Carthage, Tex., and worked there for more than 20 years, earning his way from the mill floor to sorting logs at the mill’s infeed line to eventually operating the large carriage saws that processed logs into lumber, a pivotal positing in a lumber mill’s infeed, requiring expert technique and skill.

He says his crew was among the top producers of lumber in the company’s southern region of about 100 mills. “We were known for always making our quota of lumber,” he says. “We’d push out 100,000 board feet of lumber a day. For years, we were the regional director’s favorite mule.”

In the mid-1990s, the forest products industry endured several years of downturn, with the mill in Carthage placed on rolling shutdowns. Around 2002, the company permanently closed the mill, eliminating his job.

“When LP was going through those shutdowns, I remember being at home one day and seeing a television ad about a CDL school, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘One day, I am going to take control of my career and start driving a truck,’” he says. “When that mill finally closed for good, I enrolled in a truck driving school to earn my CDL.”

He earned his CDL at nearly 45 years of age and immediately took to the road, hauling everything from lumber to steel. He drove for a local carrier for a year or two, but then drove for a few years for the once-mighty, Birmingham-based flatbed carrier, Deaton, Inc.

After Deaton closed for good in 2003, he signed on as an independent contractor for P&S and quickly established himself among the company’s most reliable and respected drivers. He points out that even though he is based in Texas, he has driven nearly his entire trucking career for Alabama-based companies.

He’s now a member of P&S Transportation’s 2 Million Mile Safe Driver Club and Legends Club. He’s been the carrier’s Independent Contractor of the Month several times and was honored as the firm’s 2022 Independent Contractor of the Year. Last year, he was selected as one of the Truckload Carrier Association’s Professional Drivers of the Year in 2024, receiving that award during the closing banquet of Truckload 2024, TCA’s annual convention held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn. In an article about the award, he was asked about his plans for the $20,000 award he received from TCA he said, “I’m holding on to it for when I’m ready to retire.” 

But don’t hold your breath. That’s not going to happen anytime soon, and that’s good news for P&S. “As long as I feel up to driving, I am going to do it for as long as I can,” he says.

Community Leader, Pit Master

White is more concerned with helping others than with winning awards. Beyond his accolades, he devotes his spare time and energy to making a difference in his community. He serves as a deacon and is an active member of his local church’s financial committee, ensuring the church can continue its mission to serve others. White has also taken it upon himself to invest in the future, personally funding a student at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Tex. His generosity and commitment to paying it forward reflect his deep-rooted belief in uplifting those around him.

When asked about the $20,000 award he received from TCA and sponsors Cummins and Love’s Travel Stops, White said at the time, “I’m holding on to it for when I’m ready to retire,” he says.

But perhaps one of White’s passions lies in his love for connecting with others through barbecue. A master of Texas-style barbecue, he is renowned for his skill in smoking ribs, brisket, and sausage on a large custom steel offset pit using Texas-grown post oak. In his younger days, he and his friends would host massive barbecues, feeding up to 200 people at a time. 

These days, he’s slowed down a bit, reserving his pit master skills for special occasions. But every Memorial Day, he continues the tradition of smoking meat for his family and friends, honoring the holiday and his love for the community. It’s a day that encapsulates everything he stands for: family, connection and gratitude.

With his story as a truck driver, pit master, community leader, and supporter of those in need, White has built a legacy that goes far beyond trucking. It’s a legacy of generosity, humility, and a relentless commitment to making the world a better place, one small act of kindness at a time. Mr. White’s legacy is secure because of the person his parents taught him to be so long ago on a sharecropper’s farm in Louisiana. That desire to be the best has lingered for successful careers in the piney woods of Texas and on the roads all across the country, hauling the things we all need to survive.