Love of the land yields a lifetime of blessings
Rives Neblett
Businessman and Farmer
By Robert McFarland, Jr.
DBJ Contributing Writer
He rides his horse through the woods noticing with a practiced eye the subtle changes in the trees and keeping an ear
cocked for the sound of the car bringing his wife and thirteen-year-old son home from Memphis at the end of another week
of school. This is what he worked sixteen hour days for for more years than he cares to count, but he had to see the world
first to know that he could be happy in his own little corner of it.
In 1964, a 21-year-old Rives Neblett set off from the Memphis Airport searching for something. Continents and countries
and months later he found it: himself. “It was on the trip around the world that I made as a young man, that I began
to develop my philosophy,” Neblett said. “I realized how much more there was out there — so many ideas and so many
wonderful places and so many interesting people. Whether I was in India or in Egypt or in Thailand or in Spain, I saw people
connect to each other and to the land they lived on. That bond with the land has been part of me ever since.”
Neblett returned to finish law school at Ole Miss and to begin work in the estate and gift tax division of the Internal Revenue Service in Jackson. His father’s death shortly thereafter brought him back home, however, to set up a law practice
and to run the farming operation that his grandfather had begun. Neblett practiced law for twenty-five years in his hometown
of Shelby, but the law alone was never enough to satisfy his energy and his entrepreneurial spirit. He has organized
and led luxury tours down the Mississippi River and, most recently, a celebration of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial down
the Columbia and Snake Rivers. He has operated an aluminum die casting manufacturing plant; he was one of the founders
of Covenant Bank of Clarksdale; he continues to work as a real estate broker specializing in local and international farm
sales; he is a commodities broker for McVean Trading Company in Memphis, working with clients who wish to diversify
their investment opportunities; and he has nurtured his family’s farming operation to a scale almost five times larger in
acreage than when he took over.
In connection with his business endeavors, he was the 1993 recipient of the Governor’s Award for Quality Manufacturing
for the State of Mississippi, the national recipient of the Blue Chip Enterprise Award given by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce,
and featured on the CBS Harry Smith Good Morning Show for work in developing the human capital of his business
through extensive training and involvement of all employees in the company’s operations.
His civic activities have been just as varied and just as successful, ranging from District Governor of Rotary International
to President of the Delta Area Council of the Boy Scouts to Regional Vice-President of Ducks Unlimited. Neblett served
as chairman of the Millennium Group which helped write the Workforce Training Act, the legislation that brought workforce
training to Mississippi’s Community Colleges, and has been Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis,
Memphis Branch.
Neblett participates in clubs and organizations beyond Mississippi’s borders including memberships in the Bohemian Club
of San Francisco; Rancheros Vistadores, a horseback riding club near Santa Barbara; the International Order of St. Huberus,
made up of hunters and sportsmen from around the world; and Confrerie Des Chevaliers Du Tastevin, the burgundy wine
tasting society. The friendships he has made in these groups have enriched his life and remind him of what he learned as a
young traveler: there is so much to see and do and know and appreciate.
One might wonder then what ties him to the Delta. Neblett finds that question easy to answer: he love the land. His work
on his farm these days is about much more than business. His farm grows cotton, soybeans, corn, and rice; but his interest
in it is much deeper than profits. As he has added acreage, he has also made sure that each new acre was landformed
and irrigated and that faming practices were put in place that would preserve the land for future generations. He has instituted
anti-erosion measures beyond what farming requirements are and dedicated a portion of the land to wildlife habitat to
be sure that as he farms he also conserves and protects. It is no surprise that he received the Governor’s award for conservationist
of the year for Mississippi. Neblett is still passionate about his work, about buying and selling land, about his
own farming operation, about providing opportunities for his commodity clients; but he admits that his focus has changed
now. “I am not working the sixteen hour days, seven days a week that I used to work,” said Neblett. “As you get older,
your value system changes, and you realize what matters the most. I can leave my office in Shelby and in ten minutes I can
join my son on a deer stand or in a duck blind. I’ve got 18,000 contiguous acres of woodlands available behind the levee to
ride my horses through. It would take me weeks to cover the same trail twice. We’ve got the finest fishing on the river
and behind the levee anyone could ask for. And most of my friends from around the country beg to come visit the Delta
because they have so much fun.”
So he rides the trails and listens for the car. With his grown daughter and grandchildren in their weekend home just down
the road and his wife and young son pulling in the driveway, Rives Neblett looks forward to another weekend behind the
levee. DBJ
