Down South, people know Jimmy Rane as Yella Fella, the cowboy character he plays in his lumber company's television commercials. In the spots his horse-riding, gun-toting alter ego fights off bandits ...

Wherever Great Southern Wood Preserving Chief Executive Jimmy Rane goes, he gets a few by now familiar questions. "They ask, 'Where's your yellow shirt? Where's your yellow hat?'" he said, though he ...

Jimmy Rane took over a tiny treated lumber business and used his showman’s flair for marketing to transform it into a major player. The Yella Fella from Abbeville is now Alabama’s richest person—and ...